The 
IfHERAN    MOVEMENT 


KTEENTH   CENTURY 

|     An  Interpretation 


:& 


<0&l  OF  P8/|$^ 
UN  21  19I.P 


v 


3* 


BR  305  .B38  1919 

Bauslin,  David  Henry,  1854- 

1922. 
The  Lutheran  movement  of  the 

sixteenth  century  


The  Lutheran  Movement  of  the 
Sixteenth  Century 


^v^OFWMfl 


I  UN  21  191 

<$tfS!CAL  lit 
AN  INTERPRETATION 


By  DAVID  H.  BAUSLIN,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

The  George  D.  Harter  Professor  of  Historical  Theology  in  the  Ham  ma  Divinity  School, 
Wittenberg  College,  Springfield,  Ohio 


PHILADELPHIA,  PA. 

THE  LUTHERAN  PUBLICATION  SOCIETY 


Copyright,  1919,  by 
THE  LUTHERAN  PUBLICATION  SOCIETY 


DEDICATION 


TO  THE  REVERED  MEMORY  OF 

THREE  GREAT  TEACHERS 

IN 

THE   MOST  EXALTED   SPHERES   OF  TRUTH 

SAMUEL  SPRECHER 

SAMUEL   BRECKENRIDGE 

SAMUEL   ORT 

MEN   HONORED  AND  BELOVED 

FOR  THEIR  NOBLE  GIFTS,  FOR  THEIR   MANY 

ACCOMPLISHMENTS,  FOR  THEIR  LARGE  USEFULNESS 

AND,   MOST  OF  ALL,  FOR  THE  BEAUTY  AND 

STRENGTH    OF  THEIR   CHRISTIAN    FAITH 

THIS  BOOK   IS   AFFECTIONATELY   DEDICATED 

BY  ONE  OF  THEIR  OWN   STUDENTS. 

HAVING  DIED  IN  PEACE  AND  IN  CHRIST 

THEY  REST  FROM  THEIR  LABORS  AND 

THEIR  WORKS  DO  FOLLOW  THEM 


PREFACE 

The  purpose  of  the  writer  in  this  book  is  not  to  present  a  con- 
nected and  detailed  narrative  of  the  events  of  the  great  move- 
ment of  the  sixteenth  century  known  as  the  Reformation,  but 
rather  to  offer  something  of  an  interpretation.  What  he  has 
sought  to  do  is  more  in  the  nature  of  a  valuation  than  an  account. 
He  is  conscious  of  the  manifold  imperfections  and  shortcomings 
of  his  work  on  a  great  subject,  which  has  occupied,  with  profit 
and  pleasure,  much  of  his  attention  in  the  more  recent  years  of 
his  life.  The  sixteenth  century  not  only  saw  great  changes, 
which  transformed  medieval  into  modern  civilization,  but  also 
witnessed  the  birth  of  a  new  type  of  Christianity,  which  is  known 
as  Protestantism.  Those  changes,  with  their  far-reaching  results, 
came  as  the  consequence  of  the  reinstatement  of  vital  principles 
in  religion,  and  for  this  reason  its  moral,  theological  and  ecclesias- 
tical aspects  have  always  claimed  the  special  attention  of  the 
student  of  history.  But  that  epoch-making  movement  produced, 
indirectly,  political,  national  and  international  results  of  the 
greatest  importance. 

In  any  study  of  the  great  conflicts  of  history  it  is  important 
not  only  to  know  when  and  where  they  were  fought,  and  the 
leading  participants,  but  also  why  they  were  fought  and  to  what 
issues  they  led.  The  scenic  and  dramatic,  the  personal  and  in- 
dividual, however  fully  and  precisely  and  brilliantly  brought  out, 
are  far  from  exhausting  what  an  historian  has  to  think  about  and 
set  in  order  for  the  times  to  come.  He  must  know  something  of 
those  political  and  religious  principles  which  give  purpose  to  his 
narration  of  events,  and  which  serve  to  interpret  men,  their  mo- 
tives, fidelity  and  courage.  Church  history,  like  the  history  of  the 
great  kingdoms  and  nations  of  the  earth,  requires  a  key,  and  that 
key  is  theology  in  the  case  of  the  Church,  as  in  the  other  case  it 
is  political  science.  Ecclesiastical  history  is  a  history  of  prin- 
ciples and  doctrines,  as  well  as  a  narration  of  events.  The  great 
and  permanently  influential  movements  in  that  sphere  had  for  the 
foundations  upon  which  they  were  builded  certain  fundamental 
principles  of  enduring  value. 

5 


6  PREFACE 

No  biography  of  Luther,  the  chief  of  the  reformers,  however 
excellent  it  may  be,  is  an  adequate  history  of  the  movement 
associated  principally  with  his  name,  nor  any  more  a  mere  recital 
of  the  successive  events  following  upon  the  act  of  the  nailing  up 
of  the  theses  in  1517.  The  Reformation  as  a  whole  cannot  be 
judged  by  the  career  of  the  great  Reformer  alone,  remarkable  as 
that  career  was  in  its  personal  aspects.  Nor,  again,  is  that  great 
movement  to  be  judged  finally  by  the  merely  temporary  struc- 
tures of  doctrine  and  polity  which  took  on  shape  and  statement 
largely  because  of  the  exigencies  in  which  both  the  Church  and 
the  State  found  themselves  after  the  Reformation  became  a 
reality. 

In  harmony  with  these  views  of  the  genius  of  history,  the 
author  of  this  book  has  attempted  to  confine  himself  largely  to 
an  interpretation  of  the  Lutheran  movement  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury under  a  fourfold  aspect  of  the  subject.  Historical  data  and 
biographical  events,  accordingly,  when  used  have  been  made  to 
serve  the  purpose  of  illustrating  and  interpreting  great  principles. 
"No  event  ever  happens  in  this  world  of  ours," it  has  been  said  by 
one  of  the  world's  great  preachers,  "until  the  fulness  of  its  time  has 
come."  This  belief  must  go  along  with  any  true  faith  in  the 
governing  and  guiding  providence  of  God.  It  is  in  the  light  of 
this  belief  that  the  writer  of  these  pages  has  sought  to  interpret 
the  significance  of  one  of  the  greatest  movements  in  the  history 
of  mankind,  without  any  attempt  at  giving  an  exhaustive  account. 
No  effort  has  been  made  to  conceal  personal  bias.  That  the  mere 
annalist  may  be  able  to  do ;  but  the  historian  cannot,  unless  he 
accepts  a  theory  of  determinism  that  is  fatalistic  and  unethical. 
Bias  and  partisanship  are  not  equivalent  terms.  The  historian  is 
a  witness  who  must  tell  the  truth,  the  whole  truth  and  nothing  but 
the  truth ;  but  he  is  also  something  of  a  judge,  who  must  do  full 
and  strict  justice  to  every  person  and  event  which  comes  before 
his  tribunal.  Divesting  himself  of  all  partisan  interest  and  preju- 
dice, truth  and  fidelity  are  his  chief  duties.  But  this  does  not 
imply  that  he  must  lay  aside  his  own  mental  energy,  the  results 
of  his  study,  and  even  his  religion  itself.  He  is  not  to  be  sup- 
posed, after  an  induction  into  all  available  historical  data,  to  love 
nothing  and  hate  nothing.  "A  Church  history,"  says  Hase.  "in 
which  the  author  exhibited  no  distinct  ecclesiastical  character,  and 
did  not  imprint  this  with  clearness  on  his  work,  would  be  of  little 


PREFACE  7 

value  to  the  Church."  A  man  cannot  be  expected  to  ignore  his 
own  beliefs,  his  training  or  his  prepossessions.  "To  pose,"  says 
Professor  Bright,  "as  external  to  a  subject  on  which  we  have  in- 
terior convictions,  to  attempt,  for  instance,  to  sweep  the  belief  in 
a  divine  Christ  out  of  our  minds,  before  we  begin  to  read  about 
the  Nicene  Council,  would  be  like  trying  to  take  ourselves  out  of 
ourselves,  to  pretend  to  be  not  what  we  are.  If  our  object  is 
truth,  we  must  not  begin  by  being  untrue,  and  affectation  of  un- 
reality is  untruth."  The  man  who  is  so  impartial  that  he  has 
no  preference  for  great  leaders  whom  he  regards  as  both  good 
and  right,  or  for  religious  principles  that  he  regards  as  sound  and 
Scriptural,  and  no  reprobation  for  their  antitheses,  may  be  qual- 
ified to  make  himself  agreeable  to  all  classes,  but  not  to  be  an 
accredited  historian  of  the  Church,  or  a  qualified  interpreter  of 
its  great  men  and  events.  The  writer  has  made  no  effort  to  con- 
ceal his  convictions,  remembering  always  that  these  belong  to  the 
things  that  may  be  disputed  or  invalidated  if  untrue. 

It  is  needless  to  add  that  this  book  is  not  intended  primarily  for 
professional  students  of  either  history  or  theology.  It  is  rather 
for  all  people  who  want  to  know  what  the  aims,  the  principles  and 
the  methods  of  the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  were — 
that  movement  which  achieved  their  great  spiritual  emancipation 
and  secured  to  them  their  inalienable  heritage  of  religious  and 
political  truth. 

It  remains  only  for  the  author  to  express  his  best  thanks  to  a 
good  friend  and  former  pastor  of  his  family,  the  Rev.  Charles  F. 
Steck,  D.  D.,  Pastor  of  the  Lutheran  Church  of  the  Epiphany, 
Washington,  D.  C.  At  the  instance  of  the  Lutheran  Publication 
Society,  he  has  reduced  the  manuscript  of  the  volume  to  type- 
written form,  in  order  to  facilitate  the  work  of  the  printer.  This 
work,  which  he  declares  has  been  a  real  labor  of  love.  Dr.  Steck 
has  done  with  unusual  care  and  accuracy,  and  the  author  desires 
in  this  place  and  way  to  express  his  heartfelt  appreciation. 

In  the  hope  that  among  Christian  believers  this  book  may  serve 
to  quicken  interest  in  the  origin,  principles  and  development  of 
the  movement  which  inaugurated  the  modern  age,  these  pages 
have  been  written. 

David  H.  Bauslin. 

Springfield,  Ohio. 

Monday  after  the  first  Sunday  in  Lent,  1918. 


CONTENTS 


SECTION  I 

PAGE 

I 


The  Needed  Reformation   i 


SECTION  II 
The  Chief  Personal  Factor  of  the  Movement 82 

SECTION  III 
The  Principles  of  the  Movement 164 

SECTION  IV 
Some  of  the  Attained  Results 268 


The  Lutheran  Movement  of 
the  Sixteenth  Century 


SECTION  I 
THE     NEEDED     REFORMATION 

The  Church  has  never,  even  at  its  worst,  rested  content  in  the 
face  of  moral  or  administrative  evils.  The  quickening  into  new- 
ness of  life  has  always  been  marked  by  the  bringing  out  from  its 
treasures  of  things  new  and  old.  Sometimes  that  quickening  has 
put  new  life  into  old  forms  and  decaying  institutions.  Some- 
times it  has  developed  new  institutions,  and  found  expression  in 
new  forms  of  Christian  devotion.  All  these  features  we  can 
discern  in  the  years  just  preceding  the  coming  in  of  the  sixteenth 
century. 

Even  before  that,  "reformation  in  head  and  members,"  which 
had  been  urged  by  great  Councils  of  the  Church,  but  which  never 
came  through  that  agency ;  mysticism,  a  deeper  relation  between 
religion  and  learning,  new  discipline  and  life,  and  new  forms  of 
devotion  to  the  Lord  and  Head  of  the  Church,  all  bore  witness  to 
the  effective  reformatory  forces  that  were  lodged  in  the  Church, 
and  to  her  capacity  to  meet  the  new  demands  made  upon  her  in 
the  period  of  the  most  urgent  need  of  the  times.  For  long 
periods,  it  is  true,  there  were  no  very  serious,  and  certainly  no 
successful,  plans  for  cleansing  what  was  very  properly  called  the 
"Augean  Stable  of  the  Papacy" ;  but  the  forces  capable  of  doing 
that  much-needed  work  had  been  resident  in  the  Church  from  the 
beginning. 

I 

By  the  Reformation  we  mean  that  great  religious  movement 
which  had  its  origin  in  the  grace  of  God,  and  which  had  been 
principally  effected  through  the  splendid  mental  and  spiritual 
influence  of  His  chosen  instrument — that  marvelous  leader  and 

11 


12  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

reformer,  Martin  Luther.  That  movement  restored  to  the  Chris- 
tian Church  the  true  and  pure  doctrines  of  the  Scriptures  for 
the  faith  and  practice  of  all  believers. 

We  may  speak  loosely  of  this  great  Lutheran  movement  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  as  though  it  were  a  definite  event.  We 
ought,  rather,  to  regard  the  overthrow  of  the  papal  supremacy 
and  the  restoration  to  the  Church  of  the  gospel,  as  set  forth  in 
the  Pauline  epistles,  as  the  result  of  a  number  of  causes,  which 
had  slowly,  and  through  a  long  period  of  time,  been  gathering 
strength.  "To  divide  history  according  to  centuries  is  a  difficult 
task.  Great  events  do  not  cease  with  one  and  begin  with  the 
next ;  they  dovetail  into  each  other,  and  are  lost  gradually  from 
sight  when  absorbed  in  the  one  paramount  spirit  of  the  age. 
We  can  see  the  leading  characteristics  of  successive  centuries 
without  knowing  their  source  or  their  results." 

We  are  reminded  of  this  reflection  of  Goethe  when  we  are 
looking  for  a  point  or  event  from  which  we  can  definitely  trace 
the  history  of  the  reformatory  movement.  When  it  was  really 
precipitated  was  October,  1517;  but  at  that  point  of  beginning 
we  stand,  as  it  were,  on  one  of  the  most  significant  of  historical 
frontiers,  with  our  glance  backward  over  the  centuries  preceding 
the  sixteenth,  and  forward  from  the  theses,  and  yet  discover 
no  exact  and  easily  determined  boundary  between  the  medieval 
period  and  the  new  and  modern  age. 

Any  great  movement  in  history  which  has  perpetuated  itself 
in  far-reaching  consequences,  permanent  and  widespread  in  their 
influence,  has  not  been  without  antecedents.  It  can  not  be  en- 
tirely traceable  to  the  persons  or  the  circumstances  of  the  par- 
ticular age  which  produced  it.  There  must  have  beeen  predis- 
posing causes  which  were  deeply  rooted  in  the  past.  Any  great 
movement  which  has  permanently  affected  the  life  of  the  Church 
or  the  progress  of  civilization  is  never  solitary.  It  is  not  to  be 
studied  or  interpreted  in  itself  alone,  or  dissociated  from  pre- 
existing causes  or  circumstances. 

There  were  such  antecedents  in  the  case  of  this  vitalizing 
movement.  While  it  was  distinctly  a  sixteenth  century  product, 
it  is  to  be  interpreted  as  the  culmination  of  forces  long  at  work, 
and  the  reassertion  of  isolated  truths  long  neglected  by  the 
Church.  For  a  right  and  adequate  interpretation  of  that  move- 
ment, it  must  be  studied  not  only  in  the  worked-out  results  of 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  13 

subsequent  events,  but  also  in  the  light  of  precedent  conditions 
and  causes.  Not  until  this  movement  came  was  there  a  reasser- 
tion  of  vital  truths  and  their  proper  co-ordination  into  a  system 
that  rendered  a  disruption  of  Western  Christendom  and  a  revision 
of  Church  doctrine  inevitable.  Whether  we  look  at  that  move- 
ment with  eyes  that  are  prejudiced,  or  whether  we  occupy  a  sym- 
pathetic or  hostile  attitude — however  much  we  may  censure  some 
of  the  purely  incidental  features  of  the  movement,  and  with 
whatever  condemnation  we  may  see  fit  to  disapprove  any  par- 
ticular agent  brought  to  the  front  in  that  great  revolution,  the 
movement  itself,  it  cannot  be  successfully  contradicted,  was  an 
historical  fact  of  great  magnitude,  a  religious  and  social  agitation 
of  fundamental  importance. 

Loud  and  urgent  demands  for  the  reformation  of  the  Church 
had,  in  one  form  or  another,  been  made  from  time  to  time. 
But  these  demands  had,  each  in  turn,  been  proven  ineffectual  in 
the  succession  in  which  they  followed  one  upon  another  prior 
to  that  day  when  the  brave  monk  of  Wittenberg  nailed  his  theses 
upon  the  church  door — an  event  from  which  a  new  world  of 
faith,  ecclesiastical  reorganization  and  Christian  civilization  has 
followed.  The  hierarchy  had  been  practically  unmoved,  and  by 
one  after  another  of  its  chief  representatives  the  cry  for  reform 
had  been  disregarded.  But  these,  for  the  time,  ineffectual  pro- 
tests and  signs  of  revolt  went  on  until  at  last  the  real  reformation, 
proceeding  upon  the  basis  of  great  and  fundamental  Christian 
certainties,  came  forth  in  both  the  forms  of  revolution  and  re- 
construction. That  individualism  which,  in  one  way  or  another, 
had  been  unheeded  in  both  the  earlier  and  later  forms  of  monas- 
ticism,  now  declared  itself  in  the  revolt  and  reaffirmations  of 
Luther.  He  and  his  coadjutors  asserted  their  independence,  not 
by  withdrawal  from  the  world  into  the  seclusion  of  the  hermit 
and  the  monk,  but  by  resisting  the  encroachments  of  the  world  on 
the  Church,  and  by  the  restoration  to  the  Church  and  the 
world  of  neglected  truths  which  had  originally  been  set  forth 
by  our  Lord  and  in  the  epistles  of  the  New  Testament. 

It  was,  indeed,  an  age  of  transition  in  which  all  this  occurred, 
and  a  period  in  which  no  one  could  exactly  forecast  what  was 
coming.  The  old  order  had  crumbled  away,  or  was  tottering  to 
its  inevitable  fall,  and  the  age  of  change  was  at  hand.  Feudalism, 
which  had  held  in  strong  grasp  the  whole  of  society,  was  gone. 


14  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

it  having  been  rendered  inoperative  largely  by  the  invention  of 
gunpowder.  The  mariner's  compass  was  pointing  the  way  to 
new  worlds  awaiting  discovery  and  presenting  vast  opportunities 
for  adventure  and  enterprise.  These,  in  turn,  were  certain  to 
react  upon  the  older  civilizations  of  the  medieval  world,  and  upon 
the  worked-out  results  of  its  mental  activity.  The  invention  of 
printing,  too,  which,  hand  in  hand,  had  come  along  with  the 
recovery  of  valuable  manuscripts  of  well  accredited  ancient  writ- 
ings, was  opening  up  the  thought  of  the  generations  of  literary 
culture  and  expression  that  were  long  past.  The  old  ideas  and 
conceptions  on  which  the  organization  of  Christian  society  had 
rested  throughout  the  Middle  Ages  were  no  longer  proving  to  be 
secure  and  practicable.  The  papacy  had,  in  spite  of  its  theories, 
its  power,  its  antiquity  and  its  elaborately  articulated  organiza- 
tion, lost  caste  by  becoming  of  the  earth  earthy,  and  its  old 
rallying  cries  were  at  last  falling  upon  deaf  ears. 

A  division  in  Western  Christendom  was  inevitable — a  division 
so  considerable  and  far-reaching  in  its  importance  that  all  the 
schisms  in  the  Church  during  the  middle  ages  were,  by  com- 
parison, insignificant.  The  process  at  work  for  a  thousand  years 
in  the  construction  of  the  system  of  "Catholicism,"  as  the  papal 
system  presumed  to  call  itself,  was  at  last  to  be  antagonized  in  all 
its  crucial  points  and  replaced  by  a  new  edifice  to  be  founded  and 
erected  upon  a  new  apprehension  of  the  Gospel.  The  tradi- 
tional basis  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  system  that  had  been  building 
for  a  thousand  years  was  to  be  impugned  in  widely  separated 
circles,  entirely  replaced  in  some  others,  and  a  new  order  of 
things  in  the  spheres  of  authority,  doctrine,  organization  and  life 
was  to  take  its  place. 

A  movement,  not  to  be  classified  with  pre-Lutheran  reform- 
atory efforts,  was  to  introduce  an  entirely  new  phase  in  the 
development  of  Christianity.  The  reactionary  forces  of  the 
primitive,  spiritual  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  which  were 
rooted  in  the  Gospel,  began  more  and  more  to  assert  themselves. 
Even  inside  the  stately  and  imposing  edifice  of  the  medieval 
ecclesiastical  system  some  of  these  forces  were  struggling  for 
freedom,  and  were  more  and  more  showing  their  capacity  to 
break  down  the  wall  that  confined  them.  Christianity  as  gospel 
was  ready  to  assert  itself  against  Christianity  as  law. 

The  Catholic  Church  and  the  medieval  papacy  were  the  greatest 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION.  15 

of  the  creations  of  the  first  fifteen  centuries  of  the  Christian  era. 
The  evolution  of  the  papacy  is  the  central  fact  of  the  first  thirteen 
centuries  after  Christ.  The  time  had  now  come  when  this  great 
organization,  which  aimed  to  control  the  whole  life  of  its  subjects 
here,  and  to  determine  their  eternal  destiny  hereafter,  was  forced 
to  reckon  with  the  incoming  new  forces  that  were  to  inaugurate 
the  modern  era.  The  great  and  transforming  movement  associ- 
ated with  the  name  of  Luther,  as  with  that  of  no  other  man  or 
force,  created  the  unmistakable  line  of  division  between  the  old 
and  the  new.  An  enlarging  horizon,  quickened  intellectual  life, 
new  facilities  for  the  acquisition  and  communication  of  knowl- 
edge, the  growing  consciousness  of  strength  and  personal  rights, 
the  bold  declarations  and  lofty  standards  of  great  masters  of 
both  political  and  religious  science,  all  proclaimed  that  the  fulness 
of  time  had  come  for  the  Reformation. 

The  Church,  it  may  be  recalled,  had  entered  the  Gentile  world  at 
the  beginning  of  its  history  as  a  forbidden  cult,  had  been  subjected 
to  fierce  persecution,  and  had  been  largely  identified  with  the 
less  influential  social  classes.  In  contradiction  of  the  spirit  of  the 
gospel  and  the  announced  principles  of  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord, 
and  by  the  mere  momentum  of  the  social  and  political  conditions 
dominant  at  Rome,  the  primitive  Church  had  been  rapidly  trans- 
formed into  a  great  worldly  system,  with  a  mighty  organization, 
made  after  the  pattern  of  that  maintaining  in  the  empire,  with 
an  elaborate  and  spectacular  ritualism,  rigid  dogma  and  mar- 
velous accumulation  of  wealth.  All  these  factors  in  the  life  of 
the  Church  had  grown  up  side  by  side. 

In  the  Church  there  had  come  about  a  striking  resurrection  of 
that  paganism  which  it  had  believed  itself  commissioned  to  over- 
throw. The  parallelism  between  the  constitution  of  the  Church 
and  the  old  imperialism  was  striking.  In  its  dogmas,  its  worship, 
the  place  it  assigned  the  Virgin,  the  saints,  angels  and  archangels, 
we  may  discover  an  indisputable  series  whose  steps  correspond  to 
the  heroes,  demigods,  gods  and  goddesses  of  the  older  pagan  days. 

The  old  empire  had  not  been  Christianized,  if  it  had  been  even 
baptized.  Christianity  had  moved  into  the  heathen  temples,  not 
so  much  to  transform  them  as  to  give  them  its  name.  Speaking 
of  this  period  as  it  influenced  the  Church,  in  his  book,  "The  Socio- 
logical Study  of  the  Bible,"  Prof.  Wallis  says:  "The  Roman 
Church  appealed  to  the  barbarians  as  the  heir  of  a  great  empire 


16  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

which  had  long  held  sway  over  the  world.  The  new  peoples  of 
the  West  were  not  converted  in  the  sense  in  which  we  now  under- 
stand that  word ;  and  it  is  more  exact  to  say  that  they  were  con- 
verted to  the  Church  rather  than  to  Christianity.  The  conquest 
of  barbarian  paganism  by  the  religion  of  the  Bible  was  at  first  the 
displacement  of  old  state  religions  by  a  new  state  religion.  The 
God  of  the  Bible  represented  by  the  figure  of  Jesus  (which  had 
now  acquired  the  religious  value  of  God)  was  accepted  by  the  new 
peoples  of  Europe  almost  on  the  basis  of  the  paganism  which  they 
abandoned." 

Speaking  of  the  introduction  of  these  pagan  features  into  the 
life  of  the  Church,  Prof.  Adeney,  in  his  historical  work  on  "The 
Greek  and  Eastern  Churches,"  says  that  "Old  heathen  rites  con- 
tinued to  be  performed  under  the  guise  of  Christian  ceremonial, 
and  saints'  images,  like  idols,  were  carried  around  as  a  protection 
against  fire,  illness  and  death.  It  was  a  change  of  name,  but  not 
of  substance.  Siegfried's  dragon  became  the  dragon  of  St. 
George,  while  the  virtues  of  the  old  goddesses  were  transferred  to 
the  Virgin  Mary."  "There  was  a  growing  approximation  of 
pagan  ritual  in  the  ceremonials  of  the  Church  and  the  feelings  of 
awe  with  which  they  were  approached." 

The  emancipation  of  the  Church  from  this  paganizing  alliance 
and  thraldom  was,  accordingly,  no  inconsiderable  task.  The 
Church,  as  an  organized  body,  had  gone  off  into  a  wrong  path,  and 
to  bring  it  back  to  the  right  ways  of  the  Lord  was  the  most 
urgent  need  of  the  times  for  the  sake  of  both  true  religion  and 
civilization. 

The  Lutheran  movement  of  the  sixteenth  century,  in  view  of 
all  this,  is  not  only  the  most  important  event  of  that  deeply  sig- 
nificant time,  but  one  of  the  most  important  events  in  the  history 
of  the  world.  In  its  far-reaching  importance  this  most  vitalizing 
movement  of  modern  times,  which  marks  at  once  the  close  of  the 
medieval  age  and  the  inauguration  of  the  modern  age,  ranks  with 
such  historical  events  as  the  invasion  of  the  Barbarians,  the 
Crusades  and  the  French  revolution.  It  was  not  the  work  of 
one  generation  or  of  one  school  of  thought,  nor  was  it  influential 
in  but  one  phase  of  life.  It  was  the  outcome  of  ages  in  which 
various  forces  had  been  at  work,  the  inevitable  evolution  of  prin- 
ciples rooted  in  the  history  of  the  early  Church,  wide-stretching  in 
its  purposes  and  in  its  results,  and  soon  became  a  potential  in- 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  17 

fluence  in  most  human  things.  It  marked  not  only  a  decisive 
turning  point  in  the  spiritual  and  moral  life  of  the  Church,  as 
then  organized,  but  served,  also,  as  a  great  landmark  in  the  intel- 
lectual, political  and  social  development  of  mankind.  For  some 
hundreds  of  years  certain  forces  had  been  gathering  strength, 
until  at  last  they  broke  in  the  revolt  of  a  considerable  portion  of 
northern  and  western  Europe  against  the  Medieval  Church  and 
subjection  and  allegiance  to  its  unauthorized  claims  and  assump- 
tions. When  the  papacy  broke  up  and  the  division  came  in 
western  Christendom  it  buried  the  world  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  its 
ruins,  but  with  the  hopeful  result  that  the  new  forces  that  were 
introduced  became  free  and  effective. 

If  the  essence  of  Christianity,  if  the  gospel  of  the  grace  of  the 
Son  of  God,  was  once  more  to  be  allowed  free  scope,  if  it  was 
to  readjust  its  relations  to  the  world,  or  to  acquire  or  generate 
new  life,  the  all-powerful  conception  of  the  Church  then  main- 
tained must  be  shattered,  or  at  any  rate,  deprived  of  its  old-time 
strength.  This  was  the  primary  requirement  for  an  age  of  tran- 
sition and  reconstruction.  Such  a  movement  as  that  we  propose 
to  consider  was  necessarily  complex.  It  was  the  work  of  friends 
and  foes,  of  powers  sometimes  antagonistic  and  warring  against 
each  other,  and  sometimes,  perhaps,  unconsciously  striving  to- 
gether for  the  same  end.  It  was  a  movement  which  profoundly 
influenced  European  literature,  affected  social  life,  modified  the 
political  system  of  the  civilized  world,  and  altered  the  problems, 
the  methods  and  the  conditions  of  philosophical  thought. 

Thus  the  Lutheran  movement,  like  all  other  impressive  and 
influential  movements  in  human  history,  sprang  out  of  the  con- 
current operation  of  various  forces  of  human  thinking  and 
activity-  There  were  political,  ecclesiastical,  social,  moral  and 
religious  influences  combined  in  the  antecedent  conditions  out  of 
which  it  issued. 

But  after  we  have  credited  a  due  measure  of  importance  to  all 
these  forces  and  influences,  the  real  secret  of  that  great  and  con- 
structive event  associated  with  the  name  and  influence  of  Luther 
is  to  be  found  in  the  revival  of  the  religious  spirit.  That  had 
been  forecast,  and  many  preliminary  forms  of  preparation  had 
been  enacted  during  an  interval  covering  four  hundred  years. 
The  long  period  of  revolt  in  one  form  and  another  against  the 
usurpations  and  abuses  in  the  Church,  the  cultivation  and  ex- 


18  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

pression  of  genuine  piety  among  the  dissenting  monks  and 
mystics,  together  with  the  awakening  of  the  public  conscience,  had 
produced  a  powerful  revulsion  against  the  government,  worship 
and  doctrines  peculiar  to  the  Church  of  that  time.  The  spiritual 
aptitudes  of  the  people  had  been  awakened,  and  their  wills  had 
been  stirred  to  action.  The  leaders  who  came  to  the  front  in 
the  movement  not  only  made  the  Reformation  a  fact,  but  were 
in  turn  also  largely  made  by  it. 

This  great  movement,  that  was  at  once  revolutionary  and  recon- 
structive, came  contemporaneously  with  the  full  splendor  of  the 
medieval  renaissance,  in  an  age  when  intellectual  curiosity  was 
awakening,  when  philosophy,  the  sciences,  and  the  ancient  literary 
treasures  were  studied  with  an  increasing  interest  and  a  real 
critical  enthusiasm.  The  change  that  passed  over  Europe  in  the 
sixteenth  century  is  traceable  primarily,  as  we  shall  see  more 
and  more  as  we  study  its  leaders,  its  principles  and  results,  to  the 
development  of  new  conceptions,  political,  intellectual  and  re- 
ligious. These  asserted  themselves  in  a  period  of  bitter  conflict 
between  contending  forces  and  antithetical  principles,  religious 
and  ecclesiastical. 

The  philosophy  of  the  period  preceding  the  Reformation  was 
but  little  more  than  mere  school  logic,  derived  at  second  or  third 
hand  from  Aristotle.  The  science  was  a  somewhat  grotesque 
amalgam  of  empiricism  and  tradition.  There  was  a  superstitious 
and  uncomprehending  reverence  for  ancient  Rome,  at  once  the 
great  imperial  and  ecclesiastical  capital,  but  which  had  also 
become  the  center  of  spiritual  apostasy.  Here  the  papacy  had  be- 
come a  great  political  institution.  The  spiritual  significance  of  the 
Church,  the  body  of  Christ,  had  here  been  merged  with  worldly 
magnificence  and  imposing  pageantry.  The  time  had  come  when 
a  man  was  needed  whose  feet  should  be  shod  with  iron  and 
brass,  who  could  trample  upon  the  impostures  and  heresies  of  the 
day ;  who  should  have  the  courage  to  defy  popes  and  princes, 
bound  together,  frequently,  in  an  unholy  and  unscriptural  alliance. 
A  man  was  needed ;  not  a  mere  saint,  who  could  by  his  holiness 
do  no  more  than  kindle  spiritual  aspirations  among  the  masses 
of  the  people.  For  such  a  man  the  times  were  waiting  and 
urgently  calling. 

The  new  century,  too,  in  which  this  movement  was  inaugurated 
was  pre-eminently  aggressive  in  its  constructive  and  destructive 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  19 

work.  It  showed  but  scant  courtesy  to  that  which  was  ancient 
if  it  had  no  other  ground  for  its  justification  than  antiquity.  That 
"elegant  pagan  pope,"  as  Leo  X  was  called,  dominated  as  he 
was  by  aesthetic  rather  than  religious  ideals,  might  attempt  to 
restore  the  vanished  glories  of  the  age  of  Augustus,  with  such  an 
elegant  gentleman  as  himself  to  fill  the  place  of  Augustus.  But 
the  age  was  becoming  too  earnest  to  any  longer  spend  its  energies 
in  worshiping  painted  virgins  or  sculptured  Venuses,  even  though 
the  one  was  the  creation  of  the  pencil  of  Raphael  and  the  other 
of  the  chisel  of  Michelangelo.  The  real  cry  of  the  times  was  for 
those  abiding  spiritual  realities  that  could  alone  satisfy  soul  and 
conscience. 

The  Church  of  this  period  had  accumulated  a  multitude  of 
relics  and  wonder-working  images  that  had  thrilled  the  hearts  of 
the  believing  and  quickened  among  the  superstitious  anticipations 
of  miraculous  deliverance  from  a  long  catalogue  of  ills.  These 
had  been  made  a  source  of  unholy  profit  and  unblushing 
imposture. 

Indulgences,  which  had  originally  been  invented  to  induce 
spiritual  tranquillity  for  the  troubled,  to  assuage  the  anguish  of  a 
despairing  conscience,  or  to  add  to  the  joyous  devotions  of  the 
pious,  had  been  at  last  made  a  substitute  for  all  real  religion. 
The  peoples,  and  their  dependents  at  Rome,  found  this  indulgence 
traffic  a  very  profitable  one,  and,  as  was  openly  said,  tried  to 
make  as  much  money  as  possible  out  of  "the  sins  of  the 
Germans." 

Upon  the  papal  see  itself  were  discernible  the  strains  of  the 
most  degrading  vices,  and  the  palatial  abode  of  the  pope,  the 
medieval  darkness  was  drawing  to  its  close,  while  its  most  de- 
pressing aspects  were  innumerable  signs  of  ecclesiatical  disorgani- 
alleged  vicar  of  the  Lord  from  heaven,  not  infrequently  exhibited 
the  spectacle  of  a  pagan  court  without  the  redeeming  virtue  of 
pagan  sincerity  in  paganism's  better  days.  The  long  night  of 
nation,  corruption  and  decay.  Blind  faith,  countless  bogus  mir- 
acles and  childish  legends  had  all  been  so  persistently  pressed  upon 
popular  attention,  and  so  exalted  by  the  popular  imagination,  that 
in  consequence  there  had  been  produced  a  condition  of  benighted 
ignorance  and  unreasoning  credulity  that  is  almost  inconceivable 
in  our  time.  Monasteries,  once  the  scenes  of  the  most  marvelous 
and  even  revolting  displays  of  ascetic  self-abnegation  and  piety, 


20  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

became  the  seats  of  disgraceful  revelry,  scandalous  sensuality  and 
worldly  avarice. 

II 

The  darkness  of  the  two  centuries  that  followed  the  end  of 
Charlemagne's  reign  was  little  short  of  the  densest  in  history.     It 
was  at  that  time  that  the  Holy  See  had  sunk  to  the  lowest  depth  of 
its  degradation  and  impotence,  when  eight  popes  in  as  many  years 
were  elected  and  overthrown,  and  weak  emperors  struggled  for 
the  rent  mantle  of  the  great  Charles,  while  over  all  a  deluge  of 
barbarism  swept  in  recurring  waves  of  Saracens,  Huns  and  Nor- 
mans.    Dean  Church  has  well  pointed  out  that  by  the  end  of  the 
tenth  century  Christian  preaching  had  been  almost  hopelessly  cor- 
rupted.    The  traditions  of  society  at  large  were  still  the  traditions 
of  undiluted  heathenism.     In  the  conflict  which  ensued  with  the 
barbarians  who  had  overrun  the  degraded  Latin  civilization,  the 
Church  had  conquered,  'tis  true,  although  at  times  it  might  seem 
as  though   the  chief  result  had  been   to  make  barbarism  more 
superstitious  and  cruelty  more  ingenious.     From  the  times  of  Leo 
the  Great  and  Gregory  the  Great  on  through  the  times  of  Gregory 
VII  and  Innocent  III  the  internal  government  of  the  hierarchy 
had  developed  into  an  oppressive  and  arrogant  absolutism.     No 
priest,  however  good  and  wise  and  faithful,  was  to  think  and  act 
for  himself  in  the  name  of  the  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ.     For  him, 
as  well  as  for  the  laity,  there  was  a  great  ecclesiastical  lord  over 
the   conscience    and   the    reason,    while    an    enforced    and    arbi- 
trary   uniformity    repressed    individual    initiative    and    freedom. 
Authority  had  degenerated  into  intolerance.     The  clergy   for  a 
long  period  had  lived  upon  a  level  conspicuously  below  even  that 
of   the   laity.     There   were    many   cases,    reaching   over    a   long 
period  of  time,  of  abnormal  popular  and  pontifical  depravity. 

The  vices  of  Pope  John  XII  had  been  a  common  scandal.  But 
it  was  only  when  he  turned  traitor  to  the  Emperor  that  he  was 
evicted  from  his  pontifical  office  in  favor  of  a  more  decent  and 
reputable  successor  in  the  person  of  Leo  VIII.  Pope  John  the 
XXIII,  notorious  for  numerous  crimes  and  unholy  profanity, 
acquired  when  he  was  a  pirate  on  the  high  seas,  was  condemned 
for  incestuous  and  adulterous  practices.  The  Abbot-elect  of 
St.  Augustine  at  Canterbury  was  found,  upon  investigation,  in 
the  twelfth  century  to  have  been  the  father  of  seventeen  illegi- 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  21 

timate  children  in  a  single  village.  Another  Abbot  in  Spain,  in 
1130,  was  proved  to  have  kept  no  less  than  seventy  concubines, 
while  another  bishop  was  deposed  in  1274  for  having  sixty-five 
illegitimate  children. 

Even  as  late  as  Luther's  day,  Albrecht,  the  Archbishop  of 
Mainz,  whom  Erasmus  had  styled  "the  finest  ornament  of  Ger- 
many in  the  present  century,"  but  whom  Kaiser  Karl  said  was 
neither  a  Catholic  nor  a  Lutheran,  but  a  pagan,  bought  his  office 
for  about  $300,000  in  our  money.  Of  this  fine  example  of 
ecclestiastical  officialism,  the  Rector  of  the  Catholic  Institute  at 
Paris  said  that  he  "employed  the  chief  artists  of  his  time  and 
rewarded  them  in  princely  style.  He  collected  the  most  cele- 
brated musicians  from,  all  parts,  gave  splendid  entertainments, 
and  made  a  dazzling  display  of  pomp.  But  the  religious  con- 
victions of  this  archbishop  had  little  depth ;  his  moral  conduct 
was  not  worthy  of  respect."  He  kept  a  harem  for  himself,  the 
chief  among  his  female  accomplices  in  sin  being  a  woman  named 
Ursula  Neidinger.  This  base  fellow  was  even  accused  of 
robbing  one  of  his  mistresses,  namel  Elsa,  of  her  jewels,  and  then 
of  adding  to  his  offense  by  casting  her  into  prison.  What  he 
allowed  himself  he  was  generous  enough  to  accord  to  others,  and 
so  his  priests  were  permitted  to  keep  concubines,  the  only  con- 
dition being  that  they  should  help  along  the  archbishop's  revenues 
by  purchasing  a  license  from  him. 

A  long  line  of  Church  Councils  and  a  prominent  group  of 
ecclesiastical  writers  concur  in  depicting  and  deploring  the  scan- 
dalous conduct  of  popes  and  prelates.  The  writings  of  the  Middle 
Ages  are  full  of  the  accounts  of  nunneries  that  were  brothels 
instead  of  nurseries  of  piety  and  centers  of  holy  influence.  In- 
fanticides were  numerous  within  these  alleged  sacred  inclosures. 
Unnatural  love  is  repeatedly  spoken  of  as  lingering  within  the 
walls  of  the  monasteries.  In  the  period  immediately  preceding 
the  Reformation  complaints  were  loud  and  frequent  that  the 
confessional  was  being  perverted  from  its  religious  purposes 
and  employed  for  those  of  debauchery.  The  Church  was  greatly 
in  need  of  purification,  not  merely  from  the  heresy  that  was  con- 
tinually asserting  itself,  but  from  notorious  scandals  which  were 
even  more  aggravated  and  serious  than  the  heresies.  It  seemed 
to  be  utterly  incapable  of  reforming  itself.  There  were  men 
within  it,  for  example,  like  Dr.  Gascoigne,  who  looked  with  alarm 


22  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

upon  the  growing  evils  and  debasing  corruptions,  but  their  cen- 
sures and  bewailings  were  generally  very  judicious  and  admin- 
istered strictly  within  Church  lines.  Bishops  and  priests  were 
neglectful  of  their  sacred  duties  in  the  cure  of  souls.  Living  in 
luxury  and  pomp,  many  of  them  were  scandalous  sinners,  so 
gross  in  their  disregard  of  the  moral  law  that  they  preached 
neither  by  word  or  example.  There  was  a  distressing  absence  of 
all  true  pastoral  care  and  protection,  while  the  flock  of  Christ 
looked  up  in  vain  and  continued  to  go,  for  the  most  part,  un- 
shepherded  and  unfed.  The  sheep  were  attended  by  the  under- 
shepherds  to  the  extent  that  they  might  be  the  more  profitably 
shorn  in  the  interest  of  the  big  and  pretentious  hierarchy,  to 
the  scepter  of  which  for  a  long  period  every  crown  in  Europe 
was  subject. 

The  immoral  lives  of  the  clergy,  the  ignorant  fanaticism  of  the 
religious  orders  and  the  sophisticated  subtleties  of  the  scholastic 
theology  had  brought  about  conditions  which  had  made  the  situa- 
tion in  the  Church  at  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  almost 
hopeless.  In  the  debased  Church  the  salt  had  well  nigh  lost  its 
savor,  and  in  the  periods  of  its  greatest  corruptions  preceding 
the  Reformation,  religious  leaders  repeatedly  permitted,  eulogized, 
and,  as  a  rule,  acted  upon  principles  that  were  contradictory  of 
the  dictates  of  the  most  common  standards  of  honesty,  not  to  say 
anything  of  the  transcendent  sanctities  of  religion.  They  were 
known  to  applaud  falsehood  and  to  practice  the  most  scandalous 
and  wholesale  forgery.  They  had  habitually  and  grossly  falsified 
history,  and  used  imposture  to  such  an  extent  that  history  had 
become  an  impious  scandal  and  the  most  glaring  of  frauds. 
Judgment  was  openly  sold,  and  plots  and  tricks  were  always 
among  the  resources  of  the  opulent  suitor  to  direct  the  course  of 
justice  and  hasten  the  desired  conclusion.  According  to  papal 
annalists  themselves,  the  innumerable  regulations  promulgated  by 
every  pontiff  had  no  other  object  than  to  give  free  scope  to 
venality  and  plunder.  Among  the  reforms  proposed  at  the  Coun- 
cil of  Constance  was  one  to  limit  the  vast  number  of  reserved 
cases  in  which  the  Roman  curia  had  assigned  itself  original 
jurisdiction,  and  by  means  of  which  the  power  of  the  local 
courts  had  been  reduced  almost  to  a  nullity,  and  conferring  on 
privileged  classes  and  persons  the  right  to  carry  their  suits  at 
once  to  Rome.     But  the  project  failed,  along  with  all  the  other 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION1  23 

proposed  reforms  of  that  Council  that  committed  John  Huss, 
leading  pre-Re formation  reformer,  to  the  stake.  The  skillful 
manipulations  of  those  who  were  interested  in  the  perpetuation  of 
the  profitable  abuses  in  the  Church  were  potent  in  taking  off  the 
chariot  wheels  of  the  conciliar  reformers.  The  well-meaning 
representatives  of  universities  and  theological  science,  and  pre- 
lates who  saw  the  urgent  need  of  reform,  were  not  equal  to  the 
task  of  the  period  and  effected  no  reforms  of  permanent  value. 

Official  attempts  at  reform  by  Church  Councils,  as  well  as  those 
made  by  heretical  sects  and  by  individual  reformers,  were  demon- 
strated failures.  Of  the  reforming  councils,  Pisa  was  not  able  to 
formulate  an  adequate  remedy  for  the  ills  of  the  Church.  The 
best  it  seemed  to  be  capable  of  doing  was  to  call  on  the  chieftains 
of  the  double-headed  hierarchy,  the  two  popes,  the  one  residing 
at  Avignon  in  France  and  the  other  at  Rome,  to  abdicate,  and 
without  even  awaiting  a  response  as  to  their  willingness  or  un- 
willingness, proceeding  to  elect  a  third  pope  in  the  person  of 
Alexander  V.  As  neither  the  French  nor  the  Italian  pope  found 
himself  in  the  resigning  mood,  instead  of  unity  in  the  head  of  the 
Church,  the  alleged  successor  of  St.  Peter,  the  papacy  had  attained 
to  a  pontifical  trinity.  Instead  of  two  heads  it  had  three,  each 
clamoring  for  recognition  as  the  one  and  only  real  head  of  the 
Church  and  the  only  rightly  qualified  occupant  of  the  chair  of 
St.  Peter.  The  chief  distinction  of  the  Council  of  Constance 
may  be  summarized  in  the  fact  that  in  1415,  one  hundred  and  two 
years  before  Luther's  theses,  it  had  triumphantly  sealed,  in 
treachery,  blood  and  fire,  the  pact  of  Christian  unity. 

The  truth  is  this,  that  the  whole  of  the  medieval  history  of  the 
organization  of  the  Church  is  a  history  of  the  growth  of  despotic 
authority  and  centralization  of  ecclesiastical  power.  The  con- 
trolling section  of  the  Church  could  see  in  it  nothing  more  than  a 
sphere  of  operations  in  the  enjoyment  of  benefices  and  the  per- 
petuation of  abuses.  The  Church  became  filled  with  the  covetous 
and  unscrupulous,  who  brought  in  their  train  corruption  of  every 
kind  and  instituted  forms  of  oppression  which  rivaled  those  of  the 
feudal  seigniory.  In  an  atmosphere  of  sordid  financial  and 
political  intrigue,  the  popes  immediately  preceding  Luther's  time 
thought  but  little  of  right  conduct,  and  most  of  all  of  glorifying  the 
capital  of  Christendom  with  architecture  and  art.  Many  of  the 
popes  had  been  transformed  from  vicars  of  Christ,  the  real  and 


24  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

only  Head  of  the  Church,  into  mere  adventurous  politicians,  even 
when  their  utterances  assumed  the  cover  of  religious  phrases. 

The  papal  elections  not  infrequently  were  scenes  of  wild  dis- 
order. So  tumultuous  was  the  conduct  of  the  people  at  the 
time  of  such  an  election  late  in  the  fourteenth  century  that  a 
furious  mob  broke  into  the  pontifical  cellars,  and  the  papal  wine 
added  to  the  disturbance  of  the  occasion.  The  cardinals  hesi- 
tated to  face  the  crowd  with  the  news  that  they  had  failed  to 
elect  a  Roman  pope,  the  man  of  their  choice  not  even  being  a 
member  of  the  sacred  college.  The  chosen  head  of  the  Church 
not  being  present,  they  had  no  one  to  present  for  the  purpose  of 
quickening  the  reverence  of  the  crowd  and  quieting  their  tur- 
bulence. Fearing,  too,  that,  according  to  an  old  custom,  the 
conclave  chamber  would  be  sacked,  they  took  the  precaution  to 
send  the  plate  and  jewels  they  had  with  them  to  the  castle  of  St. 
Angelo.  Finding  that  these  treasures  were  thus  being  carried 
away,  the  crowd  became  even  still  more  suspicious  and  indignant. 
Placing  no  further  restraints  upon  themselves,  the  mob  rushed  to 
the  door,  which  had  already  been  broken  down  to  admit  the  pre- 
lates, when  the  cardinals  became  thoroughly  terrified  at  the  pros- 
pect of  facing  the  turbulent  and  dangerous  populace  with  the 
tidings  that  they  had  not  yet  been  successful  in  the  election  of  a 
Roman  pope. 

During  the  period  of  the  "schism,"  which  began  a  little  more 
than  one  hundred  years  before  the  birth  of  Luther,  extending  from 
1387  to  1409,  zeal  had  grown  cold  in  high  places,  and  the  breaches 
in  the  papal  system  were  such  that  they  have  never  to  this  day 
been  entirely  closed.  The  evils  of  the  times  were  open  and 
avowed.  The  Church  was  venal  and  corrupt  in  all  its  members. 
The  ancient  seat  of  the  alleged  primacy  of  St.  Peter  and  his  suc- 
cessors was  for  a  long  time  even  bereft  of  its  papal  head.  The 
history  of  the  times  deals  with  accounts  of  a  debased  clergy,  who 
were  often  married  and  given  to  taverns  and  brawling,  trading 
and  usury.  As  late  as  the  Council  of  Basel,  1431-1443,  it  was 
deemed  necessary  to  pass  a  resolution,  not  only  to  do  away  with 
papal  reservations,  but  against  the  possession  of  concubines  by  the 
clergy,  and  that  assembly  of  the  Church  would  have  done  even 
more  had  it  not  been  dispersed  by  order  of  Pope  Eugenius  IV. 

Much  can  be  said  for  the  machinery  and  organization  of  the 
medieval  papacy,  for  its  enormous  superiority,  for  the  times,  not 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  25 

merely  as  a  religious  center,  but  also  as  the  center  of  law  and 
government,  for  its  many  restraints  over  turbulent  peoples,  and 
its  conservation  of  the  forces  that  were  real  civilizing  agencies  in 
that  time.  For  multitudes  of  people  its  decisions  and  imposed 
beliefs  were  the  veritable  oracle  and  tribunal  of  Almighty  God. 
But  after  all  that  may  be  said  in  its  behalf  that  can  be  truthfully 
affirmed,  there  will  be  left  a  deep  impression  of  abuses  uncon- 
cealed and  long  endured,  and  of  the  narrow  selfishness  and  wholly 
political  character  of  its  aims  and  the  dominance  of  worldly 
principles  in  all  its  extended  borders.  There  were  moral  dis- 
orders and  license,  partly  due  to  growing  riches  and  changing 
tastes  that  marked  the  fifteenth  century.  There  were  ecclesias- 
tical abuses,  such  as  tardy  and  even  corrupt  courts  at  Rome  and 
elsewhere,  excessive  fees  and  corruption,  vows  made  but  disre- 
garded, and  duties  unperformed. 

One  of  the  most  unworthy  features  of  the  system  was  its 
willingness  to  prosper  and  advance  its  unscriptural  pretentions 
by  the  use  of  traditional  jugglery  of  facts,  mystification  and 
forgery.  By  means  of  miraculous  deception,  associated  with  su- 
perstitious fears,  and  the  use  of  administrative  machinery  and 
canonical  law,  the  ecclesiastics  of  western  Europe  had  become, 
in  great  part,  its  real  rulers.  By  means  of  the  ceremonial  of 
consecration  and  coronation  of  civic  rulers  they  had  come  to  be, 
in  large  measure,  the  dictators  of  the  kings  of  the  earth.  By 
means  of  the  mighty  adjuncts  of  excommunication  and  the  inter- 
dict they  had  succeeded  in  dominating  rulers  and  terrorizing 
whole  communities.  By  virtue  of  their  ecclesiastical  distinction 
they  became  the  counselors  of  kings  and  the  judges  in  civil  mat- 
ters, while  in  some  instances  the  function  of  legislation  in  matters 
purely  of  the  state  was  actually  usurped  by  the  assembly  of 
bishops.  By  means  of  confession,  penance,  purgatorial  consign- 
ments, and  other  impositions,  the  Church  had  established  its 
lordship  over  the  conscience  of  the  individual,  and  that  individual 
soon  became  the  subject  of  an  organization  that  aspired  not  so 
much  to  control  the  conduct  of  men  as  to  enlarge  its  power  over 
mankind. 

Against  such  low  ideals  in  religion  and  their  faithful  realization 
in  a  sacredotal  and  political  Church,  a  revolt  was  inevitable. 
Reason  recoiled  against  such  despicable  ideals,  and  conscience 
protested  against  their  realization  in  the  organized  life  of  the 


26  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

Church,  and  the  result,  by  and  by,  was  the  Reformation.  When 
it  came,  as  we  shall  see,  it  was  no  mere  reaction  against  an  ex- 
hausted and  tyrannical  system,  but  a  noble  and  successful  en- 
deavor to  find  a  more  excellent  way  by  which  Christian  men 
could  get  nearer  to  the  truth  and  the  truth  get  nearer  to  man. 

Ill 

Secure  in  the  possession  of  a  temporal  power  which,  contrary 
to  the  teachings  of  the  Head  and  Founder  of  the  Church,  did 
not  belong  to  it,  the  Church  became  less  and  less  mindful  of  its 
own  distinctively  spiritual  duties.  Its  immense  authority  was 
constantly  and  more  and  more  devoted  to  the  purposes  and  de- 
signs of  the  individual  and  personal  ambition  of  its  chief  repre- 
sentatives and  the  exploitation  and  oppression  of  Christendom. 
The  deplorable  situation  was  indicated  in  the  attitude  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Mainz,  who  formulated  three  needs  of  Germany,  which, 
repeated  in  1457,  1510  and  1522,  may  be  summarized  as  mainly 
reforms  in  papal  relations,  ecclesiastical  finance  and  patronage. 
The  reform  so  pompously  promised  at  Constance  was  easily 
evaded  by  the  intrigue  of  those  whose  interests  it  would  have 
compromised  or  jeopardized.  Better  things  had  been  expected  of 
the  next  Council,  that  held  at  Basel,  but  that  had  degenerated 
into  an  unhallowed  squabble  between  the  head  and  members  of  the 
Church,  which  brought  both  into  contempt,  and  its  efforts  to 
diminish  the  abuses  connected  with  the  use  of  the  powerful 
weapons  of  excommunication  and  interdict  were  of  but  little 
avail.  The  demands  of  the  secular  power  for  a  thorough  reform 
of  the  Church  were  so  reiterated  and  so  urgently  pressed  upon 
public  attention  that  at  last  it  became  difficult  to  evade  them.  It 
was  one  of  the  results  of  these  demands  and  this  pressure  that 
these  so-called  reformatory  Councils  were  assembled.  The  last 
of  them,  which  finally  became  a  kind  of  a  "Rump"  Council,  held 
at  Basel,  after  a  useless  struggle  with  the  pope,  came  to  an 
inglorious  end  in  the  year  1443,  forty  years  before  the  birth  of 
Luther.  The  power  of  the  Councils  was  destroyed  and  the  work 
of  reformation  undertaken  by  the  bishops  had  failed. 

The  hoary  belief  in  the  supernatural  attributes  of  sacerdotalism 
had  received  nothing  more  than  a  severe  shock.  But  it  had  at 
least  come  to  pass  that  men,  at  last,  felt  at  liberty  in  the  rising 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  27 

revolt  to  criticize  the  scandalous  lives  of  popes, cardinals  and  lesser 
prelates,  while  the  medieval  species  of  veneration  was  fast  dis- 
appearing. Churchmen  showed  but  little  sense  of  responsibility 
for  the  solemn  and  awful  functions  entrusted  to  them,  and  the 
laity,  yielding  to  the  deplorable  infection  of  the  time,  came  soon 
to  look  upon  the  sacerdotal  leaders  of  the  people  as  their  equals 
and  not  as  demigods,  unapproached  and  unapproachable  in  their 
sacrosanct  isolation. 

The  moral  state  of  the  Roman  ecclesiastics  of  every  grade  and 
rank  was  scandalous  and  it  was  only  a  question  whether  their 
vices  themselves,  or  the  shamelessness  with  which  they  indulged 
themselves  in  their  debasing  practices,  was  the  worse  feature. 

The  Church  having  proven  false  to  its  great  and  distinctive  mis- 
sion and  having  employed  its  almost  illimitable  power,  not  in 
softening  the  manners  of  mankind  and  inclining  the  minds  of  the 
people  to  the  truths  of  the  gospel,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the 
laity  had  become  fierce  and  lawless.  In  consolidating  its  author- 
ity and  increasing  its  already  vast  worldly  possessions,  the  Church 
had  in  a  large  degree  abrogated  its  divine  commission.  Of  the 
situation,  bewailed  by  all  good  men,  the  biographer  of  one  of  the 
popes,  Leo  IX,  of  the  eleventh  century,  says :  "The  world  lay  in 
wickedness  ;  holiness  had  perished  ;  truth  had  been  buried  ;  Simon 
Magus  lorded  it  over  the  Church  whose  bishops  and  priests  were 
given  to  luxury  and  fornication."  We  have  presented  to  us,  as 
has  been  said,  "A  papal  court  which  seemed,  by  some  inebriation 
of  the  intellect,  to  have  dreamed  itself  out  of  Christianity  into 
paganism,  to  have  ignored,  by  a  sort  of  common  consent,  the 
Gospel  revelation,  and  instituted  again  the  Groves  of  Academis." 

Even  in  Rome,  the  Capital  of  Christendom,  the  churches  were 
neglected  and  in  ruins,  sheep  and  cattle  went  in  and  out  of  the 
broken  down  doors  and  the  monks  and  clergy  were  steeped  in  im- 
morality. According  to  John  Pico,  of  Mirandola,  one  of  the 
leading  Italian  Humanists,  scepticism  was  enthroned  frequently 
in  the  chair  of  St.  Peter.  He  accuses  one  pope  of  disbelieving 
in  the  existence  of  God  and  another  with  questioning  the  doc- 
trine of  immortality. 

Plurality  of  benefices,  the  appropriation  of  parish  churches  and 
the  purchase  of  desirable  positions  in  the  Church  constituted  at 
the  last  the  principal  cause  of  a  revolt  of  the  downtrodden  and 
impoverished  people  against  the  miserable  cupidity  and  injustice 


28  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

that  prevailed  in  the  high  places  of  the  Church.  The  law  of  the 
Church  had  even  become  an  instrument  of  wrong  and  tyrannical 
jurisdiction  in  the  hands  of  wordly  men,  who  had  in  many  in- 
stances usurped  the  offices  of  ecclesiastical  distinction.  The  hier- 
archy, that  carefully  articulated  and  co-ordinated  machine  for  the 
government  of  the  Church,  whose  head  was  in  Rome,  making  the 
unscriptural  and  unhistorical  claim  to  be  the  one  and  only  official 
successor  of  St.  Peter,  seemed  to  be  so  consigned  to  evil  as  to  defy 
all  possibility  of  reform  in  either  head  or  members.  High  posi- 
tions in  the  Church  were  secured  by  means  of  political  devices 
unsurpassed  in  the  most  degenerate  periods  of  civic  maladmin- 
istration. Even  scholarship  was  not  indispensable  in  many  pro- 
motions to  positions  where  scholarship  had  always  been  regarded 
as  a  necessary  adjunct.  Degrees  were  often  sold  at  the  univer- 
sities, and  it  is  no  cause  of  surprise  that  astounding  ignorance  and 
evil  living  went  hand  in  hand.  The  average  monastic  life,  where 
it  was  not  impure,  was  at  least  not  strenuous.  The  mendicant 
orders — Franciscans  and  Dominicans — had,  if  not  corrupt,  at 
least  grown  cold  in  the  decline  from  their  earlier  enthusiasm. 

For  long  periods  there  was  nothing  in  the  political  history 
of  the  papacy  which  would  in  any  degree  have  suggested  that  the 
spirit  and  method  of  the  Head  of  the  Church  had  contributed 
anything  perceptible  as  a  guiding  principle  in  its  councils.  Its 
methods,  in  contrast  with  those  of  its  Lord,  were  cruel,  fraudu- 
lent and  unscrupulous,  even  to  a  greater  degree  than  those  of 
most  of  the  purely  and  confessedly  secular  powers.  If  the 
Founder  of  Christianity  had  appeared  in  Europe  during  what  is 
known  as  ''the  age  of  faith,"  it  is  not  at  all  unlikely  that  He 
would  have  been  misunderstood  and  He  Himself  been  burned 
at  the  stake  or  crucified  as  a  common  malefactor  or  pestilential 
heretic.  What  the  Latin  Church  had  preserved  was  not  the 
religion  of  Christ  in  its  purity,  and  which  had  lived  on  perforce 
of  its  own  inherent  indestructibility,  but  parts  of  the  Aristotelian 
and  Platonic  philosophies,  distorted  and  petrified  by  scholasticism, 
a  vast  amount  of  Pagan  superstitution,  and  in  its  organization  a 
massive  reproduction  of  Roman  Csesarism. 

The  crying  need  for  reform  in  the  Church  and  the  state  is 
strongly  indicated,  for  example,  in  the  extreme  depression  of  the 
tenth  century,  many  of  the  bad  features  of  which  endured  down 
to  the  time  of  Luther.     That  century  constitutes  the  darkest  of 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  29 

the  "dark  ages,"  it  being  a  century  of  ignorance  and  superstition, 
anarchy  and  crime  in  Church  and  state  alike.  It  has  been 
truthfully  said  that  "the  lowest  point  which  civilization  has 
reached  in  Europe  since  the  century  and  a  half  which  followed 
the  fracturing  of  the  western  empire  by  Odoacer,  A.  D.  476,  was 
that  which  is  found  at  the  end  of  the  tenth  and  the  beginning  of 
the  eleventh  of  the  Christian  centuries."  Never  was  the  papacy 
more  degraded  than  during  the  one  hundred  and  twenty  years 
extending  from  880  A.  D.  to  1000  A.  D.  After  the  breaking  up 
of  the  Carlovingian  Empire  Europe  lapsed  into  a  state  of  almost 
complete  anarchy.  The  papacy  lost  almost  all  of  its  power  and 
prestige  and  came  to  be  a  bone  of  contention  among  rival  fac- 
tions. Beginning  in  the  state  the  demoralization  reached  the 
Church  and  culminated  in  the  papacy.  Of  this  degenerate  period 
in  the  history  of  Christianity  the  able  historian,  Dr.  Philip  Schaff, 
has  said  that  "no  Church  or  sect  in  Christendom  ever  sank  so 
low  as  the  Latin  Church  in  the  tenth  century.  The  papacy,  like 
the  old  Roman  god  Janus,  has  two  faces,  one  Christian,  one  anti- 
Christian,  one  friendly  and  beneficent,  one  fiendish  and  malignant. 
In  this  period  it  shows  almost  exclusively  the  anti-Christian  face. 
It  is  an  unpleasant  task  of  the  historian  to  expose  these  shocking 
corruptions ;  but  it  is  necessary  for  the  understanding  of  the 
Reformation  that  followed." 

It  was  during  this  time  that  the  political  disorder  of  Europe 
had  affected  the  Church  and  paralyzed  its  efforts  for  good  to  an 
extent  unattained  at  any  other  time,  and  that  the  papacy  itself 
had  lost  all  independence  and  dignity  and  had  fallen  a  prey  to 
avarice,  violence  and  intrigue,  and  had  become  a  veritable 
synagogue  of  Satan.  It  was,  during  this  time,  dragged  through 
the  quagmire  of  the  darkest  crime,  and  would  no  doubt  have 
perished  from  the  earth  in  consequence  of  its  own  degeneracy 
had  not  Providence,  which  is  the  genius  of  all  history,  saved  it 
for  better  times  and  the  real  service  which  it  rendered  to  man- 
kind even  in  the  periods  of  its  most  turbulent  history.  Pope 
followed  pope  in  rapid  succession,  most  of  them  ending  their 
careers  in  deposition,  prison  or  murder.  Prior  to  the  violent 
taking  of  the  papal  chair  by  Sergius  III,  in  A.  D.  904,  there  had 
been  nine  popes  in  thirteen  years.  One  had  died  so  hated  that 
his  body  had  been  disinterred,  stripped,  mutilated  and  thrown  into 
the  Tiber,  while  those  who  had  been  ordained  bv  him  were  com- 


30  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

pelled  to  be  re-ordained.  His  successor  had  been  already  twice 
deposed  from  clerical  office  for  scandalous  wickedness  and  died 
within  two  weeks  after  being  made  pope.  Leo  V,  A.  D.  903,  in 
less  than  two  months  was  thrown  into  prison  by  one  of  his  own 
presbyters,  who  thereupon  took  his  place,  to  be  himself  in  turn, 
and  within  a  year,  ignominiously  expelled.  The  rich  and  power- 
ful Marquises  of  Tuscany  and  the  Counts  of  Tusculum  acquired 
control  over  the  city  of  Rome  and  of  the  papacy  for  more  than 
fifty  years  of  its  bad  history. 

From  the  assassination  of  John  VIII,  the  moral  character  of 
the  papacy  went  rapidly  downward.  The  politics  of  Italy  played 
a  prominent  part  in  papal  elections.  The  political  factions  cor- 
rupted the  clergy  and  used  them  as  their  tools.  This,  too,  is 
the  period  of  what  is  known  as  the  "Pornocracy,"  or  the  \'reign 
of  the  harlots,"  when  the  papacy  fell  under  the  baleful  influence 
of  three  bold  and  energetic  women  of  the  highest  rank,  but  of 
the  most  debased  character,  Theodora  the  Elder,  the  wife  or 
widow  of  a  Roman  senator,  and  her  two  daughters,  Marozia  and 
Theodora.  Under  Pope  Sergius  this  famous  trio  of  courtesans 
came  to  power.  They  combined  with  the  fatal  charms  of  per- 
sonal beauty  and  wealth  a  rare  capacity  for  intrigue  and  a  burn- 
ing lust  for  power  and  pleasure.  For  years  they  controlled  the 
pontificate,  placing  in  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  their  companions  in 
guilt,  bestowing  the  highest  position  in  Christendom  on  their 
lovers  or  illegitimate  sons.  It  is  not  possible  fully  to  tell  the 
story  of  the  apostasy  of  this  period.  These  Roman  Amazons 
succeeded  in  turning  the  Church  into  a  den  of  robbers  and  the 
pontifical  residence  into  an  Oriental  harem.  One  of  the  fav- 
orites of  the  elder  Theodora  had  been  made  successively  Bishop 
of  Bologna  and  Archbishop  of  Ravenna,  and  later,  in  914,  through 
her  favoritism,  was  made  pope  under  the  name  of  John  X.  It 
was  about  the  middle  of  this  century  that  Marozia,  the  daughter, 
who  had  been  called  by  an  accredited  historian  ''a  drunken 
Venus,"  but  who,  notwithstanding  this  vile  characterization,  held 
the  papacy  in  her  hand,  and  in  the  bestowment  of  the  headship 
of  the  hierarchy  had  placed  one  lover  and  three  sons  and  grand- 
sons in  that  coveted  position,  once  occupied  by  Leo  the  Great, 
the  man  who  had  formulated  for  all  time  the  papal  conception 
that  the  successor  of  Peter  had  the  care  of  all  the  churches  of 
the  world,  and  later  by  Gregory  the  Great,  the  man  who  had  im- 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  31 

mensely  strengthened  the  papacy  to  do  vast  service  in  anarchic 
Europe,  and  who,  in  an  age  of  confusion,  corruption  and 
cowardice,  was  a  mighty  protagonist  of  high  ideals.  One  of 
these  favorites  of  Marozia,  known  in  the  long  line  of  the  papal 
successors  as  John  XII,  was  the  man  who,  according  to  the  testi- 
mony of  contemporary  churchmen,  turned  the  pontifical  palace 
into  a  vast  school  of  prostitution.  Devout  women  were  deterred 
from  visiting  the  tomb  of  St.  Peter,  "lest,"  as  declared  by  the  his- 
torian Gibbon,  "in  the  devout  act  they  should  be  violated  by  his 
successor."  No  more  severe  arraignment  of  the  apostasy  of  this 
pope  could  be  adduced  than  the  fact  that  a  synod  at  Rome  com- 
posed principally  of  German,  Tuscan,  French  and  Lombard  pre- 
lates, and  at  which  bishops  and  priests  of  the  neighborhood  were 
also  in  attendance,  received  testimony  against  him  from  high 
ecclesiastics  as  well  as  from  laymen,  accusing  him  of  simony, 
cruelty,  promiscuous  licentiousness,  of  homicide,  perjury,  sacri- 
lege, incest,  of  drinking  wine  to  the  honor  of  the  devil,  and  of 
invoking  the  aid  of  pagan  gods  and  goddesses  to  give  a  favorable 
turn  to  the  dice  in  his  gaming  contests. 

IV 

In  the  period  immediately  preceding  the  Reformation  the  de- 
generacy of  the  monastic  institutions  had  reached  a  debased  level. 
In  a  brief  issued  by  Pope  Innocent  VIII,  in  1490,  it  is  stated  that 
for  some  time  past  great  laxity  in  discipline  had  prevailed  in 
monasteries  of  the  Cluniac,  Cistertian  and  Premonstratensian 
Orders,  and  that  dissolute  lives  were  being  led  in  some  of  their 
houses  even  within  the  bounds  of  the  archbishop's  city,  diocese 
and  province.  In  a  letter  addressed  to  the  Abbot  of  St.  Albans, 
head  of  the  largest  and  oldest  establishment  of  the  Benedictine 
Order  in  England,  this  monastic  official  was  charged,  according 
to  common  report,  with  being  guilty  of  simony,  usury  and  waste 
of  the  goods  of  his  own  monastery,  while  many  of  the  monks 
were  found  to  be  leading  dissolute  lives  and  even  of  defiling  the 
churches  with  their  unholy  alliances  with  nuns.  Such  institu- 
tions, it  was  openly  alleged,  had  degenerated  into  public  brothels, 
and  in  one  nunnery,  at  least,  good  and  religious  women  had  been 
deposed  that  wicked  ones  might  be  promoted  to  official  position. 
These  exponents  of  monastic  piety  were  charged   further  with 


32  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

the  neglect  of  divine  worship  and  with  all  kinds  of  evil  practices, 
both  within  and  without  the  holy  precincts  of  their  institutions ; 
with  selling  the  chalices  and  jewels  of  the  Church  to  satisfy  the 
abbot's  own  greed  for  honors  and  promotions,  and,  what  was 
worse,  with  stealing  for  the  same  base  purpose  jewels  from  the 
shrine  of  the  monastery. 

These  monastic  orders  were  no  doubt  less  demoralized  than 
the  secular  clergy.  It  is  not  a  reasonable  presumption  that  they 
were  all  bad  and  incapable  of  further  usefulness.  They  had  not 
as  yet  entirely  outlived  the  great  reforms  instituted  by  Norbert 
and  Bernard.  They  were  still  capable  of  producing  some  good 
men.  Nevertheless,  there  is  truth  in  the  testimony  of  an  author- 
ity on  the  subject,  that  "Monarchism  had  become  an  oppression 
and  a  scandal,  a  hissing  and  a  reproach  to  all  men"  as  early  as  the 
close  of  the  twelfth  century.  It  is  claimed  that  what  strikes  one 
most  forcibly  in  an  examination  of  the  old  monastic  books  of  this 
period  and  later,  written  evidently  by  pious  men,  is  this,  that  there 
is  almost  no  mention  of  "personal  religion"  in  them;  that  the 
whole  gist  of  the  thinking  set  down  in  them,  and  their  speculation, 
seems  to  be  the  "privileges  of  our  order,"  "strict  exaction  of  our 
dues,"  "God's  honor,"  meaning  by  that  the  honor  of  our  saint, 
and  more  on  the  same  well-worn  lines.  Carlyle's  generalization 
in  "Abbot  Samson"  is  no  doubt  too  sweeping;  but  he  lays  his 
finger  on  the  great  weakness  and  sin  of  the  monastic  system  of 
the  time.  It  was  not  so  much  in  what  the  monk  did  as  in  what  he 
left  undone.  His  system  of  external  renunciation  had  been  dis- 
placed by  the  anxiety  of  Carlyle's  abbot  that  "above  all  things 
there  be  no  shabbiness  in  the  matter  of  meat  and  drink."  The 
monk  not  only  dwelt  at  ease  in  Zion,  selfishly  unconscious  of 
the  souls  around  him,  but  what  was  worse,  lived  with  many  of 
his  kind  in  the  degradation  of  scandalous  offences  against  God 
and  men.  Monasticism  had  fallen  upon  bad  days.  Its  spirit  and 
life  were  lost  and  its  ideals  obscured,  although  at  last  it  had 
enough  of  salt  and  life  to  make  its  contribution  of  Luther,  the 
greatest  product  of  the  medieval  monastic  system  in  its  better 
aspects.  The  picture  of  the  Church  in  France  before  Boniface 
disciplined  it  into  some  decency,  drawn  by  Principal  Workman 
in  one  of  the  chapters  of  "The  Church  of  the  West  in  the  Middle 
Ages,"  is  not  overdone.  The  majority  of  the  priests  were  run- 
away slaves  or  criminals  who  had  assumed  the  tonsure  without 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  33 

any  ordination.  Its  bishoprics  were  regarded  as  private  estates, 
and  were  openly  sold  to  the  highest  bidder.  *  *  *  The 
Archbishop  of  Rouen  could  not  read ;  his  brother  of  Treves  had 
never  been  ordained  *  *  *  Drunkenness  and  adultery  were 
among  the  lesser  vices  of  a  clergy  that  had  become  rotten  to  the 
core." 

This  view  of  the  Christian  life,  which  was  based  upon  the  idea 
of  the  abasement  of  man  before  God,  in  which  individualism, 
intelligence  and  emotion  were  all  alike  killed,  did  not  prove  itself 
to  be,  even  to  a  considerable  degree,  ethical.  In  consequence  of 
the  gross  ignorance  that  maintained  in  the  Church,  the  period  for 
centuries  before  the  Reformation  was  one  of  widespread  supersti- 
tution.  Especially  was  this  true  as  far  back  as  the  time  of  Greg- 
ory the  Great,  in  the  opening  years  of  the  seventh  century,  who 
was  generally  recognized  as  the  most  able  man  in  the  Church. 
He  was  a  man  capable  enough  in  administrative  gifts  to  have 
merged  the  office  of  Roman  Emperor  and  Christian  Bishop  into 
essentially  one,  and  thus  to  have  become  the  real  founder  of  the 
medieval  papacy.  But  big  as  he  was,  Gregory  was  a  true  son  of 
an  age  of  credulity  and  superstition.  He  believed  in  all  the  tales 
current  in  his  day  about  ghosts,  ecclesiastical  miracles  and  super- 
natural manifestations.  He  pronounced  genuine,  for  example, 
the  linen  of  St.  Paul  and  the  chain  that  had  held  him  in  bondage 
in  a  Roman  prison,  and  which  was  said  to  be  possessed  of 
miracle-working  power.  To  a  converted  Visi-Gothic  king  of 
Spain  he  sent  a  key  made  from  the  chain  of  St.  Peter,  a  bit  of 
the  true  cross  and  some  hairs  from  the  head  of  John  the  Baptist. 

This  head  of  the  papacy  at  the  termination  of  the  sixth  cen- 
tury and  opening  of  the  seventh  was  proficient  in  all  the  arts 
and  sciences  cultivated  in  his  time.  But  notwithstanding  his  gifts 
and  powers,  he  looked  upon  the  slightest  act,  and  sometimes  no 
act  at  all,  as  surrendering  the  soul  to  the  powers  of  an  irresistible 
indwelling  evil.  In  his  day  relics  had  attained  a  kind  of  self- 
defensive  power,  so  that  profane  hands  that  touched  them  were 
withered  and  men  who  endeavored  to  move  them  were  stricken 
to  death.  It  was  an  awful  thing  even  to  approach  to  worship 
them.  Men  who  had  merely  touched  the  bones  of  St.  Peter,  St. 
Paul  and  St.  Lawrence,  even  with  the  pious  desire  of  changing 
their  position  or  of  placing  the  scattered  bones  together,  had 
fallen  dead — in  one  case  to  the  number  of  ten.     The  greatest 


34  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

gift  that  the  Church  could  bestow  would  be  a  cloth  which  had 
been  permitted  to  come  in  contact  with  the  holy  but  dismembered 
remnants  of  once  living  saints.  Gregory  himself  writes  that  if 
the  chains  of  St.  Paul  would  yield  any  of  their  precious  iron  to 
the  file,  which  it  is  said  they  not  infrequently  refused  to  do,  he 
would  generously  transmit  this  to  the  empress,  consoling  her  for 
the  smallness  of  the  gift  by  the  miraculous  power  which  it  in- 
herently possessed.  This  great  pope  doled  out  gifts  of  this  order 
with  pious  parsimony,  and,  we  must  believe,  in  entire  sincerity. 
The  smallest  bit  of  filing  from  the  chain  of  St.  Peter  became  an 
inestimable  present  to  a  patrician,  an  ex-consul  or  some  barbarian 
chieftain.  In  one  of  his  letters  Gregory  refers  to  the  fragments 
of  the  gridiron  on  which  St.  Lawrence  was  roasted.  One  of  the 
most  precious  relics  from  the  chain  of  St.  Peter  once  tempted 
some  profane  Arian,  Lombard  or  heathen,  who,  in  his  effort  to 
secure  it  by  the  use  of  his  knife,  found  this  simple  bit  of  his 
property  suddenly  transformed  into  an  instrument  of  destruction, 
springing  back,  as  it  did,  to  cut  his  sacrilegious  throat ! 

Closely  connected  with  saint  worship  was  the  universal  use  of 
a  vast  catalogue  of  relics  and  a  belief  in  their  miraculous  power. 
This  expression  of  medieval  piety  was  based  by  Thomas  Aquinas 
upon  that  peculiar  kind  of  regard  which  human  nature  prompts 
us  to  pay  to  the  bodies  of  our  departed  friends  and  the  things 
held  as  the  most  prized  and  sacred  by  them  while  they  lived. 
The  bodies  of  the  saints  were  to  be  reverenced  because  they  were 
in  a  special  manner  the  temples  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  dominant 
interest  of  popular  piety  circles  around  the  saints  and  their  relics. 
These  sacred  mementoes  in  the  Church  were  the  greatest  treas- 
ures of  the  community,  while  the  relic  chest  became  the  choicest 
ornament  of  the  private  room  of  a  lady,  the  armory  of  the 
knight,  the  stately  halls  of  the  king  and  the  palace  of  the  bishop. 
So  wild,  indeed,  at  one  time,  in  the  Church  of  the  West,  had  this 
craving  for  the  wonder-working  relic  become  that  imperial  law 
had  to  prohibit  the  corpses  of  the  martyrs  being  cut  into  pieces 
and  offered  for  sale.  Ambrose  had  refused  to  consecrate  a 
church  which  had  no  relics,  while  at  the  time  the  Pantheon  was 
dedicated  by  Pope  Boniface  IV  twenty-eight  cartloads  of  the 
bones  of  the  martyrs  were  transferred  to  that  building  from 
various  cemeteries.  The  seventh  Ecumenical  Council,  held  in  787 
A.  D.,  forbade  bishops  to  dedicate  a  church  which  had  no  sacred 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  35 

relics  under  penalty  of  excommunication,  while  the  traffic  in 
such  goods  became  a  regular  business  and  a  source  of  temptation 
to  the  cupidity  of  enterprising  dealers.  They  increased  until 
western  Europe  was  full  of  them  and  every  community  had 
miracle-working  wonders,  which  were  the  products  of  excessive 
piety,  fraud  and  credulity. 

It  was  looked  upon  as  a  special  mark  of  impiety  to  doubt  the 
reliability  and  efficacy  of  the  most  scandalous  impostures  of  this 
order.  And  this  species  of  medieval  piety  did  not  decrease  with 
the  passage  of  the  centuries  after  the  time  of  Gregory  the  Great. 

The  devolpment  of  saint  worship  and  relics  which  we  find  at 
the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  amply  illustrates  this  truth. 
The  medieval  saints,  with  their  many  alleged  attributes  and  quali- 
fications, reproduced,  as  Melanchthon  said,  the  leading  ideals  of 
pagan  mythology.  St.  George  became  the  patron  of  Norsemen 
and  the  Virgin  Mary  the  goddess  of  the  sea,  like  Castor  and 
Pollux  in  the  case  of  the  former,  and  Venus  in  the  case  of  the 
latter.  The  saints,  too,  were  endowed  with  the  gifts  of  healing. 
One  worked  the  cure  of  toothache  and  another  of  headache  and 
yet  another  of  diseases  of  the  eyes.  St.  Louis  healed  the  ills  of 
horses,  and  St.  Anthony  cured  the  swine  of  fever.  The  image  of 
the  Virgin  was  carried  round  the  fields  to  make  the  flax  and  corn 
grow;  the  maimed  and  crippled  found  relief  in  St.  Cornelius,  his 
rival  being  St.  Koryn,  who  cured  bad  legs.  St.  Remus  was 
credited  with  the  cure  of  lunatics,  St.  Vincent  healed  those 
afflicted  with  bad  mouths  and  St.  Lievan  those  who  suffered  with 
boils  and  blains.  At  Einsiedeln,  in  Switzerland,  one  of  the  most 
celebrated  of  the  holy  places,  the  monastery  had  been  built  in 
the  tenth  century  in  honor  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  according  to 
the  popular  legend,  had  been  consecrated  at  midnight  by  Christ 
Himself.  The  pope  expressly  forbade  the  devout  and  simple- 
minded  children  of  the  Church  to  intimate  even  a  doubt  of  the 
truth  of  this  legend. 

In  the  period  of  the  Crusades,  beginning  in  the  closing  years 
of  the  eleventh  century,  with  open-mouthed  credulity  the  people 
of  the  West  received  the  holy  objects,  sometimes  transported  from 
the  East  and  more  times  not,  which  were  imposed  upon  them. 
These  outbursts  of  fanatical  zeal  were  responsible  for  a  queer 
and  ludicrous  aggregation  of  impostures.  There  were  the  bones 
of  Elisha,  excepting  the  head,  which  it  was  alleged  had  been 


36  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

stolen  by  the  Austin  friars.  The  Holy  Grail,  of  which  Lowell 
writes  so  charmingly,  was  found  at  Csesarea  in  1101.  The  bones 
of  the  three  kings,  Caspar,  Melchior  and  Balthazar,  reputed  to 
have  been  the  magi  who  came  to  present  their  gifts  at  the  manger 
at  Bethlehem,  were  removed  from  Milan  to  Cologne,  where  they 
are  still  reposing.  In  the  holy  collection  transmitted  from  the 
East  were  Noah's  beard,  the  horns  of  Moses,  the  stone  on  which 
Jacob  slept  at  Bethel,  the  branch  of  the  tree  on  which  Absalom 
hung,  the  table  on  which  the  last  supper  was  eaten,  the  stone 
rolled  away  from  the  sepulchre  of  our  Lord,  the  basin  in  which 
the  feet  of  the  disciples  had  been  washed,  the  crosses  of  the  two 
thieves  crucified  with  our  Lord,  the  stone  on  which  Jesus  stood 
before  Pontius  Pilate,  Paul's  thorn  in  the  flesh,  a  tooth  of  St. 
Lawrence  and  other  equal  reliquian  absurdities.  Connected  with 
the  body  of  Our  Lord  there  was  named  a  group  of  these  sacred 
mementoes  too  sacrilegious  and  revolting  to  be  even  mentioned. 
The  true  cross  on  which  He  had  been  crucified  for  the  sins  of 
the  world  was  found  more  than  once,  and  fragments  of  it  were 
so  numerous  that  the  fiction  had  to  be  invented  that  the  true  cross 
had  the  singular  property  of  multiplying  itself  indefinitely. 
These  fragments  were  declared  to  have  been  so  numerous  and 
large  as  to  have  been  sufficient  to  build  a  man-of-war.  The 
spearhead  which  had  pierced  Christ's  side  was  shown  at  Rome,  at 
Paris  and  near  Bordeaux.  The  sword  and  buckler  of  the  Arch- 
angel Michael  were  exhibited  in  France.  Fourteen  different 
places  claimed  the  possession  of  different  portions  of  the  head  of 
John  the  Baptist.  The  body  of  Matthias  was  to  be  seen  at  three 
places  and  the  body  of  Sebastian  at  four.  At  the  Episcopal  City 
of  Rodez,  in  France,  was  exhibited  and  adored  the  slipper  of 
the  Virgin  Mary,  which  was  especially  worshiped  on  Saturdays. 
A  dish  containing  the  paschal  lamb  of  the  Last  Supper  was  to  be 
found  at  Rome,  at  Genoa  and  at  Aries.  The  cup  containing  the 
eucharist  wine  was  found  at  two  different  places.  The  Princess 
of  Fretelsheim  claimed  to  be  in  possession  of  two  relics  of  the 
ass  which  carried  Christ  into  Jerusalem. 

Some  idea  of  the  popular  estimate  of  the  value  of  such  relics 
may  be  gathered  from  the  story  of  a  certain  monk  called  Bernard, 
who  was  in  the  habit  of  carrying  about  with  him  a  box  containing 
relics  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  Peter.  Happening  one  day  to  give  way 
to  unpermitted  thoughts,  Bernard  felt  the  two  saints  giving  him 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  37 

a  thump  in  the  side.  On  recovering  himself  and  coming  back  to 
a  proper  mental  state,  the  thumping  stopped,  but  was  renewed 
upon  the  return  of  the  unseemly  thoughts.  At  last,  it  is  said, 
the  stupid  fellow  took  the  hint  and  being  expurgated  of  the  illicit 
thinking  the  troublesome  thumping  ceased.  We  have  said 
enough,  and  much  more  might  be  said,  to  show  that  relics  of  the 
Church  in  Luther's  day  were  both  of  the  ludicrous  and  impossible 
order,  such  as  straw  from  the  manger  in  Bethlehem  and  plumage 
from  the  archangel's  wings. 

The  Reformers  commented  sarcastically  upon  the  absurdities 
to  which  this  accumulation  of  relics  gave  rise.  In  the  collection  at 
Wittenberg  there  were  5005  distinct  and  separate  specimens  of  the 
holy  wares,  among  them  pieces  of  the  rods  of  Moses  and  Aaron 
and  some  ashes  from  the  burning  bush.  In  the  Church  upon 
the  door  of  which  Luther  nailed  his  theses  were  shown  a  fragment 
of  Noah's  Ark,  some  soot  from  the  furnace  into  which  the  three 
young  men  of  Daniel's  time  were  cast,  a  piece  of  wood  from  the 
cradle  of  Our  Lord  and  hundreds  of  other  such  pious  absurdities. 
At  Wurtemburg  there  was  a  seller  of  indulgences  whose  head  was 
adorned  with  a  feather  said  to  have  been  plucked  from  the  head 
of  St.  Michael,  who  is  mentioned  in  the  Epistle  of  Jude  and  de- 
scribed in  Daniel.  An  inventory  of  the  relics  once  shown  at  Can- 
terbury, the  present  head  and  center  of  Anglican  Christianity, 
intended  to  excite  the  faith  and  secure  the  money  of  the  throngs 
of  pilgrims  who  came  thither,  indicates  the  immense  resource- 
fulness of  the  Church  on  that  line.  At  that  seat  of  religion  there 
were  to  be  seen  a  fragment  of  the  robe  of  Christ ;  three  splinters 
from  the  crown  of  thorns ;  a  lock  of  Mary's  hair ;  a  tooth  of  John 
the  Baptist ;  a  shoulder  blade  of  Simeon ;  blood  of  the  Apostles 
John  and  Thomas;  part  of  the  crosses  of  Peter  and  Andrew;  a 
tooth  and  finger  of  Stephen;  some  hair  of  Mary  Magdalene;  a 
lip  of  one  of  the  innocents  slain  by  Herod ;  the  head  of  Thomas 
a'  Becket;  a  leg  of  St.  George;  the  bowels  of  St.  Lawrence;  a 
finger  of  St.  Urban;  bones  of  St.  Clement,  St.  Vincent  and 
St.  Catherine ;  a  leg  of  Mildred  the  Virgin,  and  another  of  a 
virgin  saint  called  Recordia.  At  Halle  there  were  8933  of  these 
relics,  among  them  being  some  of  the  wine  from  the  wedding 
feast  at  Cana  and  some  of  the  earth  out  of  which  Adam  was 
created.  In  ridicule  of  such  impostures  Luther  advertised  that 
he  had  recently  obtained  "a  piece  of  the  left  horn  of  Moses,  three 


38  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

iiames  from  the  burning  bush  and  a  lock  from  the  beard  of 
Beelzebub." 

Thus  we  have  example  of  the  urgent  need  of  reform  in  the 
Church.  Thus  superstition  and  credulity  had  been  increased 
until  the  traffic  in  relics  was  something  enormous.  "The  western 
world,"  it  was  said,  "had  been  deluged  by  corporeal  fragments  of 
departed  saints"  and  "every  city  had  a  warehouse  of  the  dead." 
An  organized  traffic  was  carried  on  by  unscrupulous  venders  of 
the  sacred  wares,  who  had  imposed  them  upon  the  credulity  of 
the  pious.  The  Fourth  Lateran  Council  sought  to  put  a  stop  to 
these  commercial  abuses,  forbidding  the  veneration  of  relics 
which  did  not  have  the  papal  sanction,  which  it  was  said  was 
easily  obtained.  The  attitude  of  Luther  and  the  Lutheran  move- 
ment was  expressed  by  the  Reformer  in  his  larger  catechism, 
when  he  said  "est  ist  alles  tot  ding  das  niemand  hertegen  kann." 
"They  are  lifeless,  dead  things  that  can  make  no  man  holy." 

This  worship  of  the  saints  and  adoration  of  images  became  so 
widespread  and  general  that  there  was  a  veritable  craze  for  the 
shrines  of  the  saints,  and  pilgrimages  in  Europe  were  greatly 
multiplied,  the  last  decades  of  the  fifteenth  century  being  espe- 
cially given  to  such  pious  journeys.  German  princes  and  wealthy 
merchants  made  trips  to  the  Holy  Land,  visited  the  sacred  places 
there  and  came  back  with  many  prized  relics  which  they  stored 
away  in  favorite  churches.  Frederick  the  Wise,  the  Elector  of 
Saxony,  the  friend  and  protector  of  Luther  at  a  later  period,  made 
such  a  pilgrimage  and  upon  his  return  placed  the  relics  he  had 
obtained  in  the  Castle  Church  at  Wittenberg,  upon  the  doors  of 
which  Luther  nailed  his  theses  on  October  31,  1517,  thus 
inaugurating  the  revolt  against  these  and  other  ecclesiastical 
abuses  which  had  for  centuries  been  engrafting  themselves  upon 
the  Church  of  Rome. 

When  such  an  array  of  absurdities  was  recognized  as  valid  it 
is  not  surprising  that  frequently  at  the  most  sacred  seasons  in  the 
Church  calendar  the  priest  should  act  the  buffoon  and  the  clown. 
On  Easter  Sunday,  which  should  always  be  observed  with  a  note 
of  quiet  but  triumphant  joy,  the  religious  teachers  of  the  people 
studied  how  they  might  best  raise  a  laugh  among  the  church 
attendants.  One  preacher  imitated  the  note  of  the  cuckoo, 
another  hissed  like  a  goose,  while  another  related  indecent  stories. 
True   religion  was  abashed  at  such  practices,  and  that  morals 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  39 

declined  is  not  surprising.  "If  on  our  days,"  says  D'Aubigne, 
"we  should  bring  together  all  the  immoralities  and  all  the  dis- 
graceful crimes  committed  in  a  single  country  the  mass  of  cor- 
ruption would  doubtless  shock  us  still.  Nevertheless,  the  evil  at 
this  period  wore  a  character  and  universality  that  it  has  not  borne 
subsequently." 

V 

Still  another  of  the  signs  that  the  Church  was  greatly  in  need  of 
purification  is  found  in  the  scandalous  commercializing  practices 
that  had  grown  up  in  connection  with  ecclesiastical  offices.  The 
greed  for  place,  and  gain  in  the  securing  of  place,  is  voiced  in 
what  was  said  of  one  promotion  to  a  bishopric :  "He  was 
licensed  at  Rome  to  gather  the  moneys  of  Exeter,  and  not  ta 
gather  the  souls  of  that  bishopric  to  God."  In  one  of  the  ac- 
counts of  the  apostasy  of  the  Church  of  the  fifteenth  century  the 
details  are  given  of  a  man  who  had  spent  1400  marks  to  secure 
for  himself  a  deanery,  and  who  confessed,  in  addition  to  the 
charge  that  he  was  both  worldly  and  carnal  in  morals,  that  he 
knew  not  even  the  principles  of  Latin  grammar. 

One  of  the  best  accredited  of  the  historians  of  Rome  itself  in 
the  fifteenth  century,  writes:  "It  is  notorious  that  boys,  young 
men,  and  men  living  in  the  courts  of  the  worldly,  for  money  are 
placed  in  churches  and  in  great  offices  and  prelacies,  others  being 
passed  over  who  have  long  been  occupied  in  study  and  preaching 
and  in  the  government  of  the  people  without  worldly  gain."  An- 
other instance  is  given  of  a  foolish  youth  of  eighteen  years  of  age, 
the  son  of  a  simple  knight,  who  was  declared  to  be  "like  an  idiot, 
drunk  almost  every  day,"  who  was  promoted  to  twelve  prebends 
and  a  great  archdeaconry  of  one  hundred  pounds'  value,  and  to 
a  leading  rectory.  This  silly  and  incompetent  youngster  was  re- 
ported to  have  been  promoted  by  the  bishops  to  please  a  great 
worldly  lord,  whose  playmate  he  had  been  in  his  boyhood.  In 
the  enjoyment  of  these  prebends  and  of  the  archdeaconry  he  had 
remained  for  nearly  twenty  years,  although  during  all  this  time 
he  was  never  judged  capable  of  being  an  ordinary  priest,  nor 
did  he  ever  reside  in  any  of  his  dozen  prebends,  nor  in  the  arch- 
deaconry, nor  in  the  rectory.  For  him,  in  consequence  of  his 
inability  to  do  anything  in  meeting  the  requirements  of  his  nu- 
merous profitable  ecclesiastical  holdings,  all  things  were  dispensed 


40  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

from  the  see  of  Rome,  which  at  that  time  was  the  center  of  all 
errors  and  superstitions.  It  was  of  the  order  of  things  in  the 
papal  system  that  a  man  deeply  conscious  of  the  abuses  of  the 
Church  should  turn  his  eyes  for  redress  and  correction  to  Rome, 
because  the  supreme  and  governing  power  was  there.  But  even 
at  Rome,  as  late  as  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  justice  had 
to  fight  its  way  through  many  tedious  delays  and  obstacles  of 
divers  order.  In  numerous  cases  the  abuse  of  authority  was  used 
to  defeat  law  and  justice.  "I  know  a  man,"  says  the  papal  his- 
torian Gascoigne,  "who,  wishing  to  be  elected  dean  of  Salisbury, 
on  the  day  of  election,  by  the  authority  of  the  archbishop,  pro- 
nounced certain  men  by  name  to  be  then  excommunicated,  and 
to  have  been,  for  several  years  before,  pronounced  contumacious ; 
and  this  he  did  because  he  knew  that  those  men  would  not  elect 
him  to  the  deanery,  and  so  by  excommunication  they  would  not 
have  a  voice  in  the  election."  When  high  positions  in  the  Church 
could  be  secured  by  such  devices,  when  a  desired  majority  was 
obtained  by  the  process  of  eliminating  the  doubtful  members  of 
the  electorate,  it  is  not  surprising  that  neither  character,  scholar- 
ship nor  age  were  regarded  as  required  conditions  among  those 
seeking  promotion. 

Excommunication  had  frequently  been  made  available  in  reduc- 
ing to  submission  the  proudest  monarchs  of  Christendom,  as  in  the 
case  of  Henry  IV,  of  Germany,  in  the  memorable  contest  at 
Canossa  in  the  eleventh  century.  It  now  came  to  be  used  as  a 
method  of  assuring  a  favorable  majority  by  means  of  exscinding 
a  contumacious  minority,  a  method  that  not  only  would  secure  the 
desired  majority,  but  would  also  preclude  all  possibility  of  reform. 

"Rome,"  says  the  papal  authority  above  quoted,  "as  a  special 
and  principal  wild  beast  has  laid  waste  the  vineyard  of  the 
Church,  her  court  reserving  to  themselves  the  election  of  bishops, 
that  none  may  confer  an  episcopal  church  on  any  one  unless 
he  first  pays  the  annates,  or  first  fruits  and  produce  of  the  vacant 
church.  Likewise  she  has  destroyed  the  vineyard  of  the  Church 
of  God  in  several  places  by  annulling  the  elections  of  all  the 
bishops  in  England.  Likewise,  she  destroys  the  Church  by  pro- 
moting evil  men  according  as  the  king  and  the  pope  consent. 
Herein  has  she  ravaged  the  Church  like  a  wild  beast,  that  she  has 
annulled  all  the  elections  made  in  cathedral  churches,  ordaining 
that  all  elections  of  bishops  belong  to  the  Apostolic  Chamber, 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  41 

that  is,  to  the  judgment  of  the  pope  and  his  cardinals.  Also,  that 
Rome  does  not  call  any  one  a  bishop  except  one  whom  the  pope 
and  cardinals  elect  as  bishop  or  as  archbishop,  having  had  pre- 
viously paid  to  them  at  Rome  fruits  to  the  extent  of  thou- 
sands of  marks,  and  also  presents  to  Roman  and  papal  cour- 
tesans." 

This  is  no  prejudiced  and  biased  Protestant  fulmination  against 
papal  abuses,  but  a  bitter  lamentation  of  a  loyal  son  of  the  Church 
over  the  corruption  and  wrong-doing  that  prevailed  even  at  the 
chief  seat  of  authority.  Even  the  pope,  who  avowed  himself  to 
be  the  vicar  of  Christ,  the  head  of  Christendom  and  the  ruler  of 
states,  was  in  bondage  to  the  abuses  of  the  times.  Such  was  the 
almost  hopeless  condition  of  the  Church  and  of  its  government,  in 
its  head  and  members,  at  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century,  when 
affairs  were  rapidly  verging  toward  the  revolt  under  the  leader- 
ship of  Luther  and  the  reaffirmation  of  the  truth  of  the  Gospel, 
the  only  basis  of  permanent  reform. 

Whether  well  or  ill-deserved,  the  Roman  curia  had  the  reputa- 
tion of  doing  anything  and  everything  for  money,  and  this  reputa- 
tion, while  most  profitable  to  the  officials  of  the  Church,  was 
utterly  subversive  of  order  and  morality  throughout  all  the  bor- 
ders of  Christendom.  At  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century,  shortly 
after  Innocent  III  had  come  to  the  papal  throne,  and  under  whose 
pontificate  the  papal  ideals  had  attained  to  their  zenith,  Conrad, 
the  Abbot  of  Ursperg,  thus  describes  the  condition  of  the  German 
Church  in  its  relations  with  Rome :  "There  scarce  remained  a 
bishopric  or  a  prelacy,  or  even  a  parish  church,  that  was  not  in- 
volved in  law,  and  therefore  forced  to  apply  to  Rome,  but  not 
empty-handed.  Rejoice,  O  Mother  Rome!  for  the  fountains  of 
the  riches  of  the  world  are  opened  that  rivers  and  heaps  of 
money  may  pour  into  thee !  Make  merry  over  the  iniquity  of 
the  sons  of  men,  for  thou  gettest  thy  price  for  all  these  evils.  Be 
glad  over  thy  ally,  discord,  which  has  broken  loose  from  hell  that 
thou  mayest  wax  rich !  Thou  hast  what  thou  hast  always  thirsted 
for;  raise  the  song  of  joy,  for  thou  hast  conquered  the  world, 
not  by  thy  holiness,  but  by  the  wickedness  of  man.  Men  are 
drawn  to  thee,  not  by  their  devotion  or  their  conscience,  but  by 
the  increase  of  their  iniquity,  and  the  sale  for  money  of  thy 
decision  of  their  quarrels."  Two  hundred  years  later  the  com- 
plaints of  the  best  of  the  land  show  us  that  such  abuses  were  as 


42  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

rife  as  ever,  and  that  even  at  Rome,  where  gold  was  all-powerful, 
the  poor  ecclestiastical  suitor  had  no  chance.  The  god  of  this 
world  had  ascended  the  high  places  of  the  Church's  dominion, 
and  gold  could  always  direct  the  course  of  justice.  Papal  collect- 
tors  traversed  Europe  to  exact  the  payments  levied  upon  the 
churches  by  Rome.  Armed  with  the  unlimited  power  of  excom- 
munication and  interdict,  they  carried  consternation,  ruin  and 
desolation  into  entire  provinces.  There  prevailed  one  vast  sys- 
tem of  pecuniary  mulcts  as  a  condition  of  absolution.  The  vice- 
gerent of  Christ  himself  openly  used,  as  did  Sixtus  IV,  his  su- 
preme control  over  the  sacraments  for  the  base  purpose  of  extort- 
ing money  from  his  subordinates,  levying  arbitrary  and  enormous 
subsidies  upon  the  Roman  clergy  and  enforceing  their  payment  by 
a  liberal  use  of  the  dreaded  excommunication,  his  ursurped  power 
of  arbitrarily  shutting  men  out  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

We  must  always  remember  that  it  is  inevitable  in  the  chronicles 
of  any  age  that  vice  will  be  singled  out,  especially  vice  that  is  prev- 
alent under  religious  forms,  and  that  virtue,  especially  common- 
place virtue,  should  be  somewhat  overlooked.  There  was  much 
that  was  good  in  the  period  preceding  Luther's  age,  but  it  was 
good  in  the  midst  of  abounding  evils.  The  Church  presented  to 
the  men  of  that  day  the  good  and  the  bad,  the  mentally  alert 
along  with  the  superstitious,  that  peculiar  mixture  of  gross  abuses 
with  the  most  placid  and  easy  self-complacency  among  the  very 
men  who  were  maintaining  and  who  were  responsible  for  the 
abuses  that  prevailed.  The  papal  court  allowed  the  lowest  fraud 
and  imposture  in  the  working  system  of  the  Church,  and  it  was 
rather  imposing,  too,  much  of  a  burden  upon  the  intellectual  hon- 
esty that  was  beginning  to  come  to  the  front  to  expect  men  longer 
to  embrace  all  the  lies  perpetrated  in  her  name  while  she  herself 
did  not  believe  them,  and  was  laughing  on  the  sly  at  the  credulity 
of  the  faithful. 

Such  was  the  almost  hopeless  condition  of  the  Church  and  its 
supreme  government  in  the  fifteenth  century.  Secure  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  temporal  power,  it  had  become  less  and  less  mind- 
ful of  its  spiritual  prerogatives,  while  its  boundless  authority 
was  constantly  devoted  more  and  more  exclusively  to  the  purposes 
of  individual  ambition  and  the  oppression  of  Christendom.  The 
manifold  abuses  and  corruptions  that  had  grown  up  in  the  Church 
had   almost    forfeited   its   spiritual   character   and   abrogated   its 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  43 

claim  to  be  the  body  of  Christ.  Its  clergy  were  debased,  and 
it  was  enslaved  in  simony,  until  at  last  it  was  said  that  "one  can 
only  get  at  Simon  Peter  through  Simon  Magus."  As  we  ap- 
proach the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  we  come  to  a 
period  of  moral  degradation  in  the  papacy  having  no  parallel  save 
in  the  tenth  century,  when  harlots  disposed  of  the  pontifical 
office.  "The  governments  of  Europe,"  says  the  historian  Ranke, 
"were  stripping  the  pope  of  a  portion  of  his  privileges,  while,  at 
the  same  time,  the  latter  began  to  occupy  himself  exclusively 
with  worldly  concerns."  The  revelations  of  the  degeneracy  of 
the  ecclesiastical  establishment  of  the  time  are  appalling.  They, 
however,  give  this  ground  for  belief  in  the  continued  vitality 
of  the  true  Church  of  Christ,  in  that  they  show,  by  way  of  con- 
trast, the  deep  pit  and  the  miry  clay  from  which  the  Lord  and 
Head  of  the  Church  can  call  out  his  people  when  the  times  of 
restoration  come. 

Myconius  was  long  a  monk  of  the  Church,  and  became  a 
Protestant  and  one  of  Luther's  fellow-laborers.  He  wrote  a  de- 
scription of  the  religious  life  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived  from 
which  there  may  be  gleaned  such  facts  as  these : 

"Christ's  sufferings  and  death  upon  the  cross  were  regarded  by 
priests  and  people  as  an  idle  tale.  They  had  no  influence  what- 
ever upon  the  hearts  and  lives  of  men.  Christ  was  looked  upon 
as  a  severe  judge  who  condemned  all  who  did  not  look  to  the 
intercession  of  the  saints  or  to  papal  indulgence  for  salvation. 
To  secure  such  intercessions  it  was  necessary  to  perform  works 
of  penance  which  were  invented  by  priests  and  monks,  and  which 
brought  money  into  the  treasury.  Ave  Marias  must  be  repeated. 
Prayers  must  be  offered  night  and  day,  to  Saint  Ursula  and  Saint 
Bridget.  Pilgrimages  must  be  made  to  shrines  found  in  moun- 
tains, forests  and  valleys.  But  in  place  of  such  works  of  penance 
money  could  be  paid.  The  people,  therefore,  brought  to  the  con- 
vents and  to  the  priests  money  and  everything  that  had  value — 
fowls,  ducks,  geese,  eggs,  wax,  straw,  butter  and  cheese.  Then 
hymns  resounded,  bells  rang,  incense  filled  the  sanctuary,  sacri- 
fices were  offered  up,  the  larders  overflowed,  the  glasses  went 
around,  and  masses  terminated  and  concealed  these  orgies.  The 
bishops  no  longer  preached,  but  they  consecrated  priests,  bells, 
monks,  churches,  chapels,  images,  books  and  cemeteries ;  and  all 
this  brought  in  large  revenue.     The  bones,  arms  and  feet  of  the 


44  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

saints  of  bygone  times  were  preserved  in  gold  and  silver  boxes ; 
they  were  given  out  during  mass  for  the  faithful  to  kiss,  and 
this,  too,  brought  in  much  money." 

The  head  of  the  Church  and  those  who  stood  nearest  his  throne 
seem  to  have  been  completely  unaware  of  momentous  changes  that 
were  impending.  During  the  fifty  years  preceding  Luther's 
theses  not  one  word  uttered  by  the  popes  indicates  any  suspicion 
that  the  day  spring  of  a  new  age  was  dawning.  They  were  in- 
capable of  discerning  the  signs  of  the  times.  They  were  heedless 
of  the  currents  which  were  sapping  the  foundations  of  their  spirit- 
ual dominion,  which  was  rapidly  slipping  from  their  grasp.  Not 
one  of  the  famous  dynasties  of  history  has  ever  illustrated  with 
more  convincing  truth  than  the  papacy  the  terrible  proverb, 
"The  fathers  have  eaten  sour  grapes,  and  the  children's  teeth 
have  been  set  upon  edge." 

The  Church  held  in  full  possession  an  absolute  monopoly,  and 
as  with  other  monopolies  this  one  was  conducted  primarily  and 
principally  for  power  and  profit.  Ecclesiastical  offices  had  be- 
come the  objects  of  wholly  selfish  ambition,  the  ambition  of  every 
cardinal  to  be  the  pope,  of  every  archbishop  to  become  a  cardinal, 
of  every  bishop  to  be  an  archbishop,  and  of  every  parochial  priest 
to  be  a  bishop.  To  attain  the  object  of  this  graduated  ambition  in 
every  case,  the  means  most  likely  to  win  was  money,  and  but  few 
were  found  who  were  unwilling  to  use  the  means.  Simony,  with 
all  its  associated  evils,  was  almost  universal,  and  the  debasing 
practice  was  worked  from  both  ends — by  the  one  who  desired  the 
advancement  and  by  the  one  who  had  it  to  bestow.  The  man  who 
would  get  the  coveted  position  must  pay  high  for  it.  But  if  what 
this  one  would  pay  seemed,  to  the  one  who  had  the  office  to 
bestow,  not  to  promise  enough  of  the  means  to  secure  such  com- 
modities, then  the  position  was  given  to  the  one  who  would 
most  largely  share  with  the  superior  the  plunder  of  the  office, 
which  was  often  in  the  greedy  transaction  bestowed  upon  boys  of 
fourteen,  ten,  or  even  as  juvenile  as  seven  years  of  age,  or  upon 
the  most  worthless  of  men.  Thus  it  was  that  money  and  how 
to  get  it  became  the  one  chief  activity  of  the  clergy,  from  the  high- 
est to  the  lowest.  Whenever  the  bishop  made  a  visitation  over  his 
diocese,  it  became  a  new  occasion  for  money;  when  a  cardinal 
came  hence,  it  meant  still  more  money;  when  the  papal  nuncio 
came,  it  meant  yet  more  money,  and  when  the  pope  chanced  to 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  ,  45 

come,  it  meant  the  most  money  of  all.  For  a  sufficient  price,  it 
was  even  made  easy  to  find  that  a  marriage  was  within  the  for- 
bidden degrees  of  relationship,  and  accordingly  void. 

Peter  Cantor  was  a  churchman  of  sufficient  standing  to  have 
influence  even  with  Pope  Innocent  III,  the  great  defender  of 
Church  dogmas,  a  master  organizer  of  the  hierarchy,  and  an  ad- 
ministrator with  but  one  peer  in  the  history  of  the  papacy.  It 
is  Cantor  who  asserts  that  "the  most  holy  sacrament  of  matri- 
mony, owing  to  the  remote  consanguinity  coming  within  the  pro- 
hibited degrees,  was  made  a  subject  of  derision  to  the  laity  by 
the  venality  with  which  marriages  were  made  and  unmade  to 
fill  the  pouches  of  the  episcopal  officials."  This  was  but  one 
phase  of  the  infinite  casuistry  by  which  any  truth  or  principle  of 
righteousness  could  be  avoided.  The  forbidden  degree  of  con- 
sanguinity was  never  discovered  until  after  the  marriage,  and  not 
even  then  except  for  a  monetary  consideration  of  consequence. 

The  Romish  Church  offered  no  proper  resistance  to  the  cor- 
rupting order  of  things.  On  the  contrary,  papal  agents  were  con- 
tinually laboring  to  swell  the  list  of  mercenaries  for  the  service  of 
the  pope.  Referring  to  the  practices  of  an  energetic  cardinal  in 
his  own  country  of  Switzerland  who  had  wrought  to  this  end 
with  indefatigable  zeal,  Zwingli  said:  "With  right  do  the  car- 
dinals wear  red  hats  and  cloaks ;  for,  shake  these  garments,  and 
out  fall  ducats  and  crowns;  wring  them,  however,  and  they  drip 
with  the  blood  of  your  sons,  fathers  and  best  of  friends."  Ex- 
pressions of  judgment  of  this  order  could  be  multiplied  in- 
definitely, and  all  tending  to  confirm  what  we  have  contended  for 
— that  corruption  and  wrong-doing  prevailed  everywhere,  having 
even  ascended  to  the  high  places  of  authority. 

But  Protestant  indictments  of  popular  abuses  are  not  neces- 
sary. Innumerable  incidental  notices  in  the  writers  of  the  times, 
even  of  Romanists  themselves,  exhibit  a  condition  of  depravity 
and  degradation  which  has  seldom  been  surpassed.  The  cor- 
luption  had  reached  all  classes,  and  had  come  to  dominate  insti- 
tutions that  should  have  been  the  most  holy  among  men. 

A  most  startling  picture  of  the  condition  of  the  clergy  comes 
from  the  pen  of  Desiderus,  the  Abbot  of  Monte  Cassino,  who  later 
(in  1086)  became  Pope  Victor  III.  "The  Italian  priesthood," 
says  he,  "and  among  them  most  conspicuously  the  Roman  pontiffs, 
are  in  the  habit  of  defying  all  law  and  all  authority;  thus  utterly 


46  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

confounding  together  things  sacred  and  profane.  During  all  this 
time  the  Italian  priesthood,  and  none  more  conspicuously  than 
the  Roman  pontiffs,  set  at  naught  all  ecclestiastical  law  and 
authority.  The  people  sold  their  suffrages  for  money  to  the 
highest  bidder ;  the  clergy,  moved  and  seduced  by  avarice  and  am- 
bition, bought  and  sold  the  sacred  rites  of  ordination,  and  carried 
on  a  gigantic  traffic  with  the  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Few  pre- 
lates remained  untainted  with  the  vile  pollution  of  simony ;  few, 
very  few,  kept  the  commandments  of  God,  or  served  him  with  up- 
right heart;  following  their  chiefs  to  do  evil,  the  great  sacerdotal 
herd  rushed  headlong  down  the  precipice  into  a  quagmire  of 
licentiousness  and  profligacy ;  priests  and  deacons,  whose  duty  it 
was  to  serve  God  with  clean  hands,  and  with  chaste  bodies  to 
administer  the  sacraments  of  the  Lord,  took  to  themselves  wives 
after  the  manner  of  the  laity;  they  left  families  behind  them,  and 
bequeathed  their  ill-gotten  wealth  to  their  children ;  yea,  even 
bishops,  in  contempt  of  all  shame  and  decency,  dwelt  with  their 
wives  under  the  same  roof — a  nefarious  and  execrable  custom, 
prevailing,  alas !  most  commonly  in  that  city  where  laws,  thus 
shamefully  set  at  naught,  first  issued  from  the  sacred  lips  of  the 
Prince  of  the  Apostles  and  his  holy  successors." 

The  rapid  multiplication  of  orders  and  their  marvelous  in- 
crease of  wealth  was  followed  by  equally  rapid  degeneration  and 
decay,  so  that  the  original  purpose  of  the  monastic  organizations 
was  lost  after  a  few  generations  had  passed.  Those  who  dwelt 
under  vows  of  poverty  in  monastic  seclusion  were  changed  into  a 
worldly  aristocracy  under  a  religious  name.  The  promise  of 
chastity  was  forgotten,  the  abbeys  became  centers  of  corruption, 
and  many  of  the  nunneries  were  almost  transformed  into  houses  of 
prostitution.  In  many  such  institutions  devoted  to  piety  and 
meditation  the  inmates  lived  riotously  and  waged  war  upon  their 
neighbors.  Men  like  the  Abbot  Gilbert  confessed  with  shame 
that  monasticism  had  become  an  oppression  and  a  scandal,  a 
cause  of  hissing  and  reproach  among  men.  In  1147  St.  Bernard, 
in  many  respects  the  most  commanding  figure  of  the  medieval 
Church,  said  of  the  region  of  the  Count  of  Toulouse:  "The 
churches  are  without  people,  the  people  are  without  priests,  the 
priests  without  the  reverence  due  them,  and  the  Christians  with- 
out Christ.  The  churches  are  regarded  as  synagogues ;  the  sanc- 
tuary of  the  Lord  is  no  longer  holy;  the  sacraments  are  no  longer 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  47 

held  sacred ;  feast  days  are  without  solemnity ;  men  die  in  their 
sins,  and  their  souls  are  hurried  to  the  dread  tribunal,  neither 
reconciled  by  penance  nor  fortified  by  the  holy  communion." 

Cardinal  Baronius  is  one  of  the  well-authenticated  annalists  of 
the  Papal  Church.  Of  the  papacy  in  the  ninth  century  Baronius 
says:  "Never  had  divisions,  civil  wars,  the  persecutions  of  the 
pagans,  heretics  and  schismatics  caused  it  to  suffer  so  much  as 
the  monsters  who  installed  themselves  on  the  throne  of  Christ  by 
simony  and  murders.  The  Roman  Church  was  transformed  into 
a  shameless  courtesan,  covered  with  silks  and  precious  stones, 
which  publicly  prostituted  itself  for  good. 

"The  palace  of  the  Lateran  was  become  a  disgraceful  tavern, 
in  which  ecclesiastics  of  all  nations  disputed  with  harlots  the  price 
of  infamy.  Never  did  priests,  and  especially  popes,  commit  so 
many  adulteries,  rapes,  incests,  robberies  and  murders ;  and  never 
was  the  ignorance  of  the  clergy  so  great,  as  during  this  de- 
plorable period.     *     *     * 

"Thus  the  tempest  of  abomination  fastened  itself  on  the  Church, 
and  offered  to  the  inspection  of  men  the  most  horrid  spectacle. 
The  canons  of  councils,  the  creed  of  the  apostles,  the  faith  of 
Nice,  the  old  traditions,  the  sacred  rites,  were  buried  in  the  abyss 
of  oblivion ;  and  the  most  unbridled  dissoluteness,  ferocious 
despotism,  and  insatiable  ambition,  usurped  their  place. 

"Who  could  call  legitimate  pontiffs  the  intruders  who  seated 
themselves  on  the  chair  of  the  apostles?  And  what  must  have 
been  the  cardinals  selected  by  such  monsters  ?" 

Of  the  papacy  in  the  tenth  century  Baronius  says : 

"In  this  century  the  abomination  of  desolation  was  seen  in  the 
temple  of  the  Lord ;  and  in  the  See  of  St.  Peter,  reverenced  by 
angels,  were  placed  the  most  wicked  of  men;  not  pontiffs,  but 
monsters. 

"And  how  hideous  was  the  face  of  the  Roman  Church  when 
filthy  harlots  governed  all  at  Rome,  changed  Sees  at  their  pleas- 
ure, disposed  of  bishoprics,  and  intruded  their  gallants  and  their 
bullies  into  the  See  of  St.  Peter !" 

Of  the  twelfth  century  the  same  writer  avowed  that  "it  ap- 
peared as  if  antichrist  then  governed  Christendom."  Baronius 
was  writing  as  an  historian,  but  Bernard,  the  distinguished  monk 
of  Cluny,  the  author  of  "Jerusalem  the  Golden,"  lived  at  the 
time  and  it  is  he  who  writes  thus : 


48  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

"The  golden  ages  are  past.  Pure  souls  exist  no  longer.  We 
live  in  the  last  times.  Fraud,  impurity,  rapine,  schisms,  quar- 
rels, wars,  treasons,  incests  and  murders  desolate  the  Church. 
Rome  is  the  impure  city  of  the  hunter  Nimrod.  Piety  and  re- 
ligion have  deserted  its  walls.  Alas !  the  pontiff,  or  rather  king, 
of  this  odious  Babylon  tramples  under  foot  the  Gospels  and 
Christ,  and  causes  himself  to  be  adored  as  a  god." 

In  an  address  before  Pope  Innocent  IV  and  his  cardinals,  in 
the  thirteenth  century,  Robert  Greathead,  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln, 
England,  in  a  personal  appeal  for  a  check  on  the  abuses  of  the 
time  told  the  assembled  prelates  plainly  that  "the  clergy  were 
a  source  of  pollution  to  the  whole  earth;  they  were  antichrists 
and  devils  masquerading  as  angels  of  light,  who  made  of  the 
house  of  prayer  a  den  of  robbers ;  and  the  Roman  curia  was  the 
source  of  all  the  vileness  which  rendered  the  priesthood  a  hissing 
and  a  reproach  to  Christendom." 

In  the  fourteenth  century,  in  speaking  of  the  scheme  of  Pope 
John  XXII  to  make  capital  out  of  the  abominations  of  the  times 
by  means  of  a  systematic  tax  on  sins  for  "absolution,"  "free  dis- 
pensation" and  "assurance,"  the  abbot  of  one  of  the  monastic  in- 
stitutions exclaimed:  "Rejoice  now,  Vatican!  all  treasures 
are  open  to  thee.  Thou  canst  draw  in  with  full  hands.  Rejoice 
in  the  crimes  of  the  children  of  men,  since  thy  wealth  depends 
en  their  abandonment  and  iniquity!     *     *     * 

"Now  the  human  race  are  subject  to  thy  laws!  Now  thou 
reignest — through  depravity  of  morals  and  the  inundation  of 
ignoble  thoughts.  The  children  of  men  can  now  commit  with 
impunity  every  crime,  since  they  know  that  thou  wilt  absolve 
them  for  a  little  gold.  Provided  he  brings  thee  gold,  let  him 
be  soiled  with  blood  and  lust.  Thou  wilt  open  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  to  debauches,  Sodomites,  assassins,  parricides — what  do  I 
say?     Thou  wilt  sell  God  Himself  for  gold!" 

In  the  time  of  the  "schism,"  and  during  the  double  pontificate 
of  Boniface  IX  and  Clement  VII,  the  one  reigning  at  Rome 
and  the  other  at  Avignon,  the  doctors  of  the  University  of 
Paris  addressed  a  letter  to  the  King  of  France  in  which  they 
said: 

"Two  popes  elevate  to  prelacies  only  unworthy  and  corrupt 
ministers,  who  have  no  sentiments  of  equity  or  shame,  and  who 
think  only  of  satiating  their  passions. 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  49 

"They  rob  the  property  of  the  widow  and  the  orphan,  at 
the  same  time  that  they  are  despoiling  churches  and  monas- 
teries. 

"Sacred  or  profane,  nothing  comes  amiss  to  them,  provided 
they  can  extract  money  from  it. 

"Religion  is  for  them  a  mine  of  gold,  which  they  work  to 
the  last  vein. 

"They  sell  everything  from  baptism  to  burial. 

"They  traffic  in  pyxes,  crosses,  chalices,  sacred  vases,  and  the 
shrines  of  saints. 

"One  can  obtain  no  grace,  no  favor,  without  paying  for  it. 

"It  is  not  the  worthiest,  but  the  richest,  who  obtain  ecclesiasti- 
cal dignities." 

The  earliest  writer  on  English  Canon  Law,  John  Athon, 
writing  of  abuses  found  in  the  Church  of  England  by  a  legatine 
inquest  made  in  1237,  indulges  in  no  protest  against  its  severity, 
but  adds  some  touches  and  reflections  of  his  own :  "Our  pre- 
lates," says  he,  "are  pilots  asleep  in  the  storm."  "Churchmen 
strain  the  canons  by  casuistry  so  as  to  give  countenance  to  Eng- 
land's greatest  evil,  robbers."  "The  rural  deans  have  neither 
the  courage  nor  the  knowledge  for  their  work."  "They  are  fat 
with  the  plunder  and  the  blood  of  the  poor."  "Ecclesiastical 
lawyers  say  to  a  scrupulous  client,  answer  thus  and  you  will 
lose  your  case;  but  they  fail  to  add,  if  you  do  not  answer  thus 
you  will  lose  your  soul."  This  native  churchman  took  even  a 
gloomier  view  of  the  English  Church  of  his  time  than  the 
Roman  legate  who  had  conducted  the  inquest  on  the  Apostate 
Church,  in  which,  in  order  to  aid  in  the  detection  of  the  rascals, 
Pope  Innocent  III  had  issued  elaborate  direction  how  to  detect 
nine  different  sorts  of  sham  papal  bulls. 

The  deplorable  fact  was  this,  that  for  centuries  before  Luther 
the  papacy,  from  being  the  teacher  of  religion,  the  organizer  of 
civilization,  the  heart  and  soul  of  Christendom,  was  changing 
into  a  piece  of  tyranny,  depressing  incubus  and  a  by-word.  The 
spiritual  empire  of  the  Gregories  and  the  Innocents  had  been 
rapidly  verifying  the  famous  epigram  of  the  English  unbeliever 
Hobbes,  who  had  come  to  regard  it  as  a  translation  into  spirit- 
ual terms  of  the  empire  of  the  Caesars,  and  who  said,  "If  a  man 
consider  the  original  of  this  great  ecclesiastical  dominion,  he  will 
easily  perceive  that  the  papacy  is  no  other  than  the  ghost  of 


50    LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

the   deceased   Roman   Empire,   sitting  crowned  upon   the  grave 
thereof." 

VI 

If  we  would  understand  aright  the  force  of  the  feelings  that 
had  come  to  make  the  papacy  hateful  among  the  people,  until 
that  hatred  broke  out  at  last  into  open  revolt  under  Luther's 
leadership,  it  is  worth  while  to  note  what  we  have  already  cited 
and  much  more  that  can  be  adduced  from  the  impassioned  ut- 
terances of  this  time'.  Dietrich  Vrie,  a  well-meaning  monk,  who 
had  gone  to  the  Council  of  Constance,  in  a  Latin  poem  which  is 
more  remarkable  for  its  vigor  than  for  its  grace  of  expression, 
puts  this  language  into  the  mouth  of  the  degenerate  and  dis- 
consolate Church :  "The  pope,  once  the  wonder  of  the  world, 
has  fallen,  and  with  him  fell  the  heavenly  temples,  my  members. 
Now  is  the  reign  of  Simon  Magus,  and  the  riches  of  this  world 
prevent  just  judgment.  The  papal  court  nourishes  every  kind  of 
scandal,  and  turns  God's  houses  into  a  market.  The  sacraments 
are  basely  sold ;  the  rich  is  honored,  the  poor  is  despised ;  he 
who  gives  most  is  best  received.  Golden  was  the  first  age  of  the 
papal  court ;  then  came  the  baser  age  of  silver ;  next  the  iron 
age  long  set  its  yoke  on  the  stubborn  neck.  Then  came  the  age 
of  clay.  Could  aught  be  worse  ?  All  things  are  degenerate ; 
the  papal  court  is  rotten;  the  pope  himself,  head  of  all  wicked- 
ness, plots  every  kind  of  disgraceful  scheme,  and  while  absolving 
others  hurries  himself  to  death."  This  author's  "History  of 
the  Council  of  Constance"  opens  with  a  severe  denunciation  of 
the  simony,  the  avarice,  the  ambition  and  the  luxury  of  the  pope, 
the  bishops  and  the  entire  clergy.  "What  shall  I  say  of  their 
luxury  when  the  facts  themselves  cry  out  most  openly  on  the 
shameless  life  of  prelates  and  priests !  They  spare  neither  con- 
dition nor  sex ;  maidens  and  married  men  and  those  living  in 
the  world  are  all  alike  to  them."  "Benefices,"  he  complains, 
"which  ought  to  provide  alms  for  the  poor  have  become  the 
patrimony  of  the  rich." 

If  these  utterances  of  this  historian,  himself  a  papist,  may  be 
thought  of  as  too  highly  rhetorical,  they  are  more  than  confirmed 
by  the  writings  of  soberer  spirits,  in  which  denunciations  of 
the  same  order  and  lamentations  over  the  abuses  that  every- 
where   prevailed   plentifully   abound.     Even   in    the    Council    of 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  51 

Trent,  which  assembled  in  the  year  before  that  in  which  Luther 
died,  much  plain  speaking  was  indulged  in  by  zealous  brethren 
in  the  presence  of  the  assembled  fathers  of  the  Church.  The 
monstrous  declension  of  the  ecclesiastical  system,  the  seculari- 
zation of  the  whole  body  of  the  clergy,  the  greed  of  the  Curia, 
the  ignorance,  laziness  and  lewdness  of  many  of  the  secular 
clergy,  the  corruption  of  the  monks,  in  short,  the  degeneracy  of 
the  officials  of  the  Church,  were  all  laid  at  that  great  assembly  of 
the  papacy,  and  with  much  plainness  of  speech,  at  the  Church's 
own  door.  Evidences  were  multiplying  that  at  last  Rome  was 
becoming  sobered  and  forced  to  put  its  house  in  order.  Pope 
Paul  III  contemplated  with  anxiety  the  progress  of  the  Refor- 
mation in  the  lands  beyond  the  Alps  when  he  became  head  of  the 
Church  in  1534.  Knowing  full  well  that  the  appalling  corrup- 
tion of  the  Vatican,  the  clergy  and  the  monks  must  cease,  or  that 
each  in  its  turn  must  pass  away,  as  late  as  the  beginning  of  his 
pontificate  Paul  had  appointed  a  commission  of  the  more  strict 
from  the  College  of  Cardinals  to  examine  into  Luther's  indict- 
ment of  the  Church.  The  letters  of  the  early  Jesuits  make  it 
impossible  for  any  fair-minded  historian  to  longer  question  the 
appalling  corruption  of  priests,  monks  and  people  in  every  part 
of  Europe  at  the  period  of  the  inauguration  of  Luther's  reform- 
atory and  reconstructive  work.  Even  from  Rome,  the  head  and 
center  of  Christendom,  one  priest  wrote  to  another  that  there 
were  not  three  men  of  his  class  in  the  city  who  were  not 
stained  by  concubinage  and  crime.  Papal  infamy  had  become 
the  subject  of  most  widespread  discussion.  No  other  subject  in 
the  spiritual  struggles  of  the  time  attracted  a  wider  interest. 
Symptoms  were  multiplying  to  show  that  a  new  order  of  things 
was  at  hand.  Causes  that  paved  the  way  for  the  Reformation 
were  working  effectively,  if  not  always  harmoniously. 

One  of  the  certain  signs  of  the  degeneracy  of  any  period  in 
Christian  history  may  be  found  in  the  kind  of  men  tolerated  as 
the  leaders  and  teachers  of  the  Church  and  as  the  sacrosanct 
exponents  and  examples  of  the  spirit  of  Christianity.  Most  of 
the  popes,  it  must  be  said,  were  men  of  mediocre  ability  but 
respectable  character.  Some  were  but  little  removed  from  idle 
voluptuaries,  while  others  were  apostate  and  vicious.  Roman 
Catholic  writers  do  not  hesitate  to  admit  that  there  have  been 
wicked  popes.       Dante  is   far   from  being  alone  in   remanding 


52  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

some  of  them  to  the  pains  of  perdition.  Judas,  say  some  of  the 
papal  apologists,  betrayed  his  Master  and  Peter  denied  Him, 
and  how  can  we  reasonably  expect  that  the  successors  of  the 
apostles  should  be  better  than  the  apostles  themselves? 
Prophets  in  the  Old  Testament  were  sometimes  cowardly  and 
unfaithful,  and  the  Church  of  that  period  passed  through  times 
of  darkness  and  corruption.  Then  why  not  the  Church  of 
the  new  covenant?  But  notwithstanding  the  apologies,  from 
its  very  beginning  it  was  notorious  that  badness,  even  in  violent 
forms,  had  sometimes  climbed  up  into  the  chief  places  of  papal 
power  and  dominion  and  that  enormities  and  atrocities  were 
found  even  in  the  court  of  the  pontificate  and  among  the  wearers 
of  the  papal  tiara. 

Leo  the  Great,  who  became  pope  in  the  year  440,  was  the 
man  who  first  really  elaborated  the  papal  theory  of  the  Church, 
laying  the  greatest  possible  emphasis  on  the  fact  that  there  is 
one  God,  one  Church,  one  universal  Bishop,  one  faith  and  one 
interpreter  of  that  faith,  and  that  the  recognition  of  this  primary 
fact  alone  could  bring  unity  and  efficiency  to  the  Church  on 
earth.  That  he  was  sincere  there  is  no  doubt.  He  disdained 
all  diplomacy  and  argument.  His  tone  was  always  authorita- 
tive, arrogant  and  dogmatic  in  the  highest  degree.  His  writings 
indicate  that  he  spoke,  not  as  the  individual  Leo  I,  lacking  an 
increment  of  personal  prestige,  but,  as  he  in  all  honesty  regarded 
himself,  as  the  official  successor  of  St.  Peter,  and  in  obedience  to 
a  command  which  he  unquestionably  believed  had  been  laid  upon 
him.  He  died  November  10th,  461 — just  1022  years  earlier  than 
the  birth  of  Luther — but  while  he  lived  he  had  formulated  for  all 
time,  as  he  thought,  the  papal  conception  that  the  successor  of 
St.  Peter  had  the  care  and  headship  of  all  the  churches  of  the 
world.  He  came  upon  the  stage  at  a  time  when  he  had  the 
chance  to  observe  the  growing  prestige  of  the  papacy,  which  in 
Rome,  now  no  longer  an  imperial  residence,  was  drawing  to 
herself  the  authority  and  influence  of  the  waning  and  dis- 
credited empire.  His  own  conception  of  the  greatness  and 
possibilities  of  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  must  have  been  largely 
moulded  by  what  he  had  thus  actually  seen — a  conception  to 
which  he  was  to  give  most  effective  expression,  when,  by  and 
by,  he  himself  came  to  occupy  that  exalted  position.  This  was 
his  line  of  argument :    It  was  Peter  who  had  been  singled  out  by 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  53 

the  Lord  for  the  commission  to  strengthen  his  brethren,  and 
to  feed  the  flock  of  Christ.  Peter  is,  therefore,  the  Chief 
Shepherd,  who  is  set  over  the  undershepherds  of  that  flock.  He 
is  at  once  the  pattern  and  the  source  of  all  ecclesiastical  author- 
ity. In  other  words,  according  to  Leo's  argument,  Peter  was 
directly  appointed  by  Christ  as  the  Prince  of  the  Universal 
Church,  the  primate  to  whose  authority  all  bishops  must  defer. 
As  for  Rome,  she  is  holy  and  elect,  a  priestly  and  royal  city, 
which  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  has  raised  to  the  position  of  the 
capital  and  first  city  of  the  world,  conferring  upon  her  wider 
sway  than  that  which  her  earthly  lordship  had  ever  bestowed. 

Of  these  claims  Leo  speaks  with  conviction,  and  as  a  man 
conscious  of  his  undoubted  right  to  speak  as  he  does.  He 
speaks  always  as  a  superior  to  an  inferior,  or  as  a  commander  to 
his  subordinates.  But  even  the  startling  character  of  these 
claims  of  the  founder  of  the  papacy,  and  the  persistence  and  force 
with  which  Leo  asserted  the  prerogatives  of  his  position,  did 
not  save  the  great  organization  of  which  he  was  the  official 
head  from  indications,  early  in  its  history,  of  official  degeneracy 
and  appalling  corruption. 

Even  in  the  time  of  Gregory  the  Great,  who  became  pope  in 
590,  that  influential  prelate  wrote  to  the  ecclesiastical  chieftains 
in  widely  separated  countries :  "I  hear  that  no  one  can  obtain 
orders  in  your  province  without  paying  for  them."  As  early 
as  599  he  had  to  issue  a  circular  letter  forbidding  bishops  to  have 
women  in  their  houses,  and  ordering  priests,  deacons  and  sub- 
deacons  to  separate  from  their  wives.  In  an  age  of  confusion, 
corruption  and  cowardice,  Gregory  became  a  mighty  force  for 
the  creation  of  greatly  improved  ideals  which  did  not  long  retain 
their  idealism.  The  popes  were  great  temporal  sovereigns, 
and  as  early  as  the  eighth  century  the  art  of  forging  documents 
to  bolster  up  their  unscriptural  and  secularized  pretensions  and 
claims  was  cultivated.  This  method  of  fortifying  papal  su- 
premacy reached  its  culmination  in  what  are  known  as  the 
"Pscudo-Isadorian  Decretals,"  a  collection  of  documents,  both 
genuine  and  forged,  which  appeared  in  Europe  about  the  middle 
of  the  ninth  century.  The  aim  of  these  forgeries,  which  ap- 
peared under  the  name  of  Isadore  Mercator,  was  to  furnish  the 
Church  something  of  a  written  constitution,  and  to  give  as- 
surances  of  primitive   sanction   to   Roman   supremacy.        Their 


54  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

genuineness  was  generally  believed  in  almost  without  question 
until  the  time  of  the  Reformation;  but  for  the  most  part  they 
made  up  one  of  the  most  stupendous  of  all  forgeries.  Worked 
out  with  admirable  skill  and  consummate  ingeniousness,  they  con- 
stituted the  most  audacious  and  pious  fraud  ever  perpetrated  in 
the  history  of  the  Church.  But  notwithstanding  the  belief  that 
all  things  were  allowable  which  were  adduced  to  uphold  the  doc- 
trines and  prerogatives  of  the  Church,  and  the  bogus  piety  of 
the  fraud,  the  cares  of  earthly  dominion  enfeebled  the  sense  of 
spiritual  duty  and  at  times  warped  the  character  of  other- 
wise good  men.  Pope  Stephen  III,  for  example,  in  an  age  of 
easy  dissolution  of  the  marriage  relation  had  but  little  to  say 
about  divorce,  but  became  violently  denunciatory  of  an  alliance 
with  the  Lombards,  the  disproportion  of  his  indignation  being 
one  of  the  most  conspicuous  features  of  his  pontificate. 

Pope  Nicholas  I,  who  died  in  867,  largely  thi-ough  the  in- 
fluence of  the  false  decretals  raised  the  Church  above  the  State, 
causing  the  former,  during  his  time,  to  reach  the  acme  of 
earthly  dominion.  He  came  to  regard  himself,  in  deep  sincerity, 
as  the  veritable  representative  of  God  on  earth,  as  such  a  real 
and  elevated  vicar  of  Christ  that  he  occupied  a  throne  so  high 
that  from  its  great  elevation  all  men,  kings  and  beggars,  patri- 
archs and  monks,  were  of  the  same  size.  He  believed  that  his 
prerogatives  were  so  great  that  he  was  officially  responsible  to 
God,  as  he  frequently  said,  for  every  immoral  and  irreligious 
movement  in  "every  part  of  the  world."  Historical  truth  com- 
pels us  to  say  that,  even  for  a  pope,  he  assumed  an  immense 
responsibility.  He  looked  upon  himself  as  divinely  appointed 
and  "inspired,"  and,  in  consequence,  soon  came  to  believe  that 
disobedience  to  him  was  disobedience  to  God.  From  him  kings 
received  their  crowns,  and  to  him  they  were  to  be  abjectly  subject, 
even  as  the  common  serfs  were  to  them.  To  his  orders  great  and 
powerful  prelates  were  to  render  obedience,  or  be  deposed  from 
all  ecclesiastical  preferment  and  distinction.  Without  his  sacro- 
sanct approval  no  council  of  the  Church  could  be  held  in  Europe. 
Without  his  papal  authorization  no  church  could  be  built  and  no 
book  of  any  importance  be  published.  He  lived  at  an  assumed 
elevation  never  authorized  of  God  for  any  man  or  official,  ecclesi- 
astical or  secular.  He  adopted  a  lofty  tone  in  dealing  with 
princes,  and  fell  little  short  of  the  dictatorial  manner  of  the  most 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  55 

powerful  autocrats  who  ruled  from  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  in  the 
crowning  era  of  the  papal  theocracy  under  Hildebrand  and  Inno- 
cent III. 

Nicholas  was  the  greatest  personal  constructive  force  in  the 
making  of  the  medieval  papacy  up  to  his  time.  He  was  a 
strict  example  of  the  prestige  of  the  system.  He  rebuked  with 
sternness  the  most  autocratic  and  aristocratic  sinners.  He 
scolded  princes  and  kings  as  if  they  had  been  the  most  sub- 
servient lackeys.  Like  Gregory  the  Great,  he  added  dignity  to 
his  assumptions  by  the  moral  animus  which,  in  general,  dis- 
tinguished his  pontificate.  But  after  all,  it  was  the  loftiness  of 
the  claims  of  his  sacerdotal  creed  more  even  than  the  strength  of 
his  personality  or  manifest  sincerity  that  served  to  exalt  him  so 
much  above  the  disorders  of  the  troublous  times  in  which  he 
lived.  When  we  think  of  it  as  a  time  of  murder,  incest,  rape, 
spoliation ;  a  time  of  monastic  and  priestly  corruption,  of  un- 
questioned and  monstrous  evils,  which  are  amply  reflected  in  the 
letters  of  this  pontiff  himself — whatever  our  view  may  be  as  to 
the  unscriptural  and  unhistorical  claims  of  this  man — we  cannot 
but  feel  that  it  was  well  for  Europe  at  that  time  to  have  had  such 
a  masterful  ecclesiastical  official.  The  forged  decretals,  which 
were  but  little  used  by  the  popes  before  the  middle  of  the 
eleventh  century,  were  of  immense  service  to  the  papacy  in 
spreading  a  conviction,  in  a  credulous  and  superstitious  age,  of 
the  antiquity  of  these  advanced  but  entirely  untenable  claims  of 
the  greatest  of  medieval  organizations,  if  not  the  greatest  of 
all  times.  It  used  methods,  and  proceeded  at  times  on  the  basis 
of  principles,  at  complete  variance  with  the  teachings  of  Christ, 
the  Head  of  the  Church — principles  which  no  cause  could 
sanctify,  and  which,  being  bequeathed  to  its  later  history,  have 
caused  the  papacy  to  be  distrusted,  and  which  have  continued  to 
arouse  hostility  extending  from  the  days  of  Nicholas  I  to 
Benedict  XV. 

But  the  seeds  of  degeneracy  were  deeply  rooted  in  the  papal  sys- 
tem itself,  which  had  been  bolstered  up  by  interpolations  and  for- 
geries. Bad  days  were  at  hand.  The  history  of  the  Western 
Church,  controlled  by  Rome  during  the  latter  part  of  the  ninth 
and  tenth  centuries,  deals  with  a  period  of  unparalleled  corrup- 
tion and  inefficiency.  The  papacy  as  a  constructive  spiritual 
force  almost  disappears  from  view.     The  influence  of  such  lead- 


56  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

ers  and  organizers  as  Leo  the  Great,  Gregory  the  Great  and 
Nicholas  I  has  almost  entirely  disappeared,  and  their  ideals  and 
ambitions  for  the  Church  have  fallen  upon  days  of  depressing  de- 
generacy. After  the  death  of  Nicholas  in  867,  there  came  for 
over  two  hundred  years  a  line  of  weak  popes  for  the  greater 
part  of  the  unholy  succession.  Many  of  them  were  not  only 
weak,  but  wicked  and  worldly.  The  Church  was  reaping  the 
direful  reward  of  her  own  unscriptural  mesalliances,  unholy  and 
secular  in  character. 

Prior  to  the  time  of  Nicholas  there  had  been  among  the  oc- 
cupants of  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  but  few  men  of  commanding 
ability  or  dominating  personality,  but  even  fewer  of  ignoble 
character.  But  even  as  much  cannot  be  said  of  most  of  his  suc- 
cessors down  to  the  time  of  Hildebrand.  It  was  a  pope,  Stephen 
VI,  the  official  vicar  of  Christ  and  alleged  successor  of  Peter, 
who  had  exhumed  from  its  grave  the  half  putrid  body  of  For- 
mosus,  a  predecessor,  and  treated  it,  in  a  wretched  outburst  of 
his  papal  brutality,  with  appalling  indignity  and  outrage.  At  a 
time  when  violent  disorders  broke  out  under  John  VIII,  one  of 
the  stronger  of  the  successors  of  Nicholas,  speaking  of  the  lead- 
ing ecclesiastics,  one  of  the  most  conservative  and  reticent  of 
writers  has  said :  "Their  swinish  lust  was  only  second  to  their 
cruelty  and  avarice."  Hadrian  II  had  the  widow  of  one  of 
these  base  officials  whipped  naked  through  the  streets  of  Rome, 
and  had  the  eyes  of  another  put  out.  In  the  tenth  century 
came  the  reign  of  the  "Pornocracy,"  when,  in  the  lamentable 
development  of  the  papcy  in  this  period,  the  dominion  of  such 
dissolute  women  is  all  the  more  queer  and  inexplicable,  because 
it  is  the  record  of  the  feminine  ascendancy  in  a  nominal  theoc- 
racy. It  was  during  this  period  that  there  were  three  popes 
at  the  same  time,  with  but  little  of  choice  between  each  of  the 
three  pontifical  scoundrels.  Though  very  young  on  his  accession 
to  the  papal  throne  in  1033,  Benedict  IX  was  noted  for  his  cor- 
ruption. His  crimes  were  many  and  flagrant.  He  committed 
murders  and  adulteries  openly,  "robbed  the  pilgrims  on  the 
graves  of  martyrs,  and  turned  Rome,"  as  was  said  of  him,  "into 
a  den  of  thieves."  His  atrocious  conduct  at  last  exhausted  the 
patience  of  the  Romans  and  they  expelled  him,  electing  Sylves- 
cer  III  in  1044,  one  year  before  Benedict's  death.  But  the  de- 
posed vicar  of  Christ,  by  the  help  of  the  Tusculans,  returned  and 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  57 

reinstated  himself  in  power.  He  then  sold  the  papacy  in  1045 
to  John  Gratian,  who  became  Pope  Gregory  VI,  and  who  hoped, 
by  means  of  reforming  the  institution,  to  justify  the  illegal 
proceeding  of  buying  it.  But  Benedict  again  returned  and 
claimed  what  he  had  sold,  on  the  ground  that  the  sale  was 
illegal,  inasmuch  as  he  had  no  right  to  sell  the  successorship  of 
St.  Peter — an  instance  of  a  troubled  conscience  and  an  example 
of  luminous  piety  in  a  dark  time. 

The  history  of  the  times  demonstrates  beyond  any  doubt, 
even  in  the  minds  of  fair-minded  papalists,  that  various  repre- 
sentatives of  the  papacy  had  fallen  below  even  an  average  stand- 
ard of  righteous  conduct,  and  some  of  them  of  even  common 
decency,  and  that  at  least  a  few  in  the  lists  of  badness  had  given 
adequate  ground  to  be  rated  as  specimens  of  extraordinary  de- 
pravity. Even  as  early  as  the  fourth  century  some  of  the 
successors  of  the  humble  fisherman,  St.  Peter,  seem  to  have 
yielded  to  the  temptations  of  worldly  display  and  luxury,  to  say 
nothing  worse.  Even  a  heathen  historian  refers  to  their  costly 
turnouts,  and  declares  that  their  feasts  surpassed  those  of 
"kings'  tables."  This  same  writer  informs  us  further  that,  even 
at  such  an  early  period,  the  episcopal  chair  was  considered  worth 
contending  for  even  unto  the  shedding  of  blood,  and  that  in  one 
case  the  sacrifice  of  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven  lives  in  the 
storming  of  a  church  was  only  an  incident  of  the  struggle 
through  which  Pope  Damasus,  elevated  to  his  office  in  A.  D.  366, 
was  made  the  Roman  bishop.  It  is  not  affirmed,  to  be  sure,  how 
great  was  the  responsibility  of  the  successful  candidate  for  pon- 
tifical honors  in  this  disgraceful  and  unholy  contest,  but  it  would 
be  something  of  a  strain  upon  charity  to  suppose  that  the  chief 
beneficiary  was  in  no  degree  accountable  for  the  bloody  violence 
of  his  successful  advocates. 

Not  less  discreditable  were  the  circumstances  attending  the 
elevation  of  Vigilius  in  the  year  537.  According  to  Hefele,  the 
Catholic  historian  of  the  Church,  this  man  came  to  his  lofty  posi- 
tion as  the  conscious  instrument  of  an  intriguing  empress,  and 
as  the  result  of  outrageous  injustice  against  his  predecessor,  who 
was  made  the  victim  of  lying  accusations  and  driven  from 
office  in  order  to  make  room  for  a  characterless  successor,  an 
irritating  official  of  whom  it  was  said  that  he  promised  every- 
thing and  paid  only  with  prevarications. 


58  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

Beginning  with  Sergius  III  in  904,  the  chief  office  of  the 
whole  papal  system  for  more  than  half  a  century  was  the  spoil  of 
unprincipled  Italian  nobles  and  a  bad  trio  of  notorious  females. 
At  a  later  period,  according  to  the  admission  of  Pastor,  another 
of  the  Catholic  historians,  the  conduct  of  these  depraved  "Vicars 
of  Christ"  was,  in  general,  conspicuous  for  its  worldly  tone, 
even  at  times  going  into  the  extreme  of  a  demoralizing  and  dis- 
graceful luxury.  Some  of  them  exhibited  a  temper  somewhat 
at  variance  with  that  of  the  real  Lord  and  Head  of  the  Church, 
whose  special  representatives  they  claimed  to  be.  One  of  these 
popes,  Clement  V,  who,  as  one  of  the  subjects  of  the  French 
king,  was  elevated  to  the  papacy  in  1305,  became  much  enraged 
at  the  encroachments  of  the  Venetians  upon  Ferarra.  He  not 
only  expended  the  full  list  of  penalties  against  these  Venetians, 
but  in  addition  made  their  property  liable  to  confiscation  and 
their  persons  to  enslavement  wherever  they  might  be  seized. 

Gregory  XI,  one  of  the  popes  of  Avignon  from  1370  to  1378, 
was  not  surpassed  by  Clement  when  he  gave  vent  to  his  rage 
against  the  Florentines  in  violent  and  outrageous  speech.  An- 
other of  these  vicars,  Clement  VI,  who  resided  during  the  Baby- 
lonian captivity  at  Avignon,  in  his  effort  to  crush  the  Emperor, 
Lewis  of  Bavaria,  showed  himself  to  be  something  of  an  expert 
in  the  use  of  violent  invective.  If  that  kind  of  speech  were 
effective  certainly  Lewis  must  have  been  somewhat  reduced,  for 
speaking  of  him  the  pope  indulged  in  this  strain :  "We  humbly 
implore  divine  power  to  repress  the  insanity  of  the  aforesaid 
Lewis,  to  bring  down  and  crush  his  pride,  to  overthrow  him  by 
the  might  of  its  right  hand,  to  inclose  him  in  the  hands  of  his 
enemies  and  pursuers  and  to  deliver  over  to  them  his  prostrate 
body.  Let  the  oven  be  made  ready  for  him  in  secret  and 
let  him  fall  into  it.  Let  him  be  accursed  coming  in ;  let  him 
be  accursed  going  out.  The  Lord  smite  him  with  folly  and 
blindness  and  frenzy  of  mind.  Let  the  heaven  send  their  light- 
nings upon  him.  Let  the  wrath  of  the  omnipotent  God  and  of 
the  Saints  Peter  and  Paul  turn  against  him  in  this  world  and 
that  to  come.  Let  the  whole  earth  fight  against  him ;  let  the 
ground  open  and  swallow  him  up  alive.  In  one  generation  let 
his  name  be  blotted  out  and  his  memory  extinguished  from  the 
earth.  Let  all  the  elements  be  against  him.  Let  his  habitation 
become  a  desert ;  let  all  the  merits  of  the  saints  above  confound 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  59 

him,  and  make  open  display  of  vengeance  upon  him  in  this  life; 
and  let  his  sons  be  cast  out  of  their  habitations  and  with  his  own 
eyes  let  him  see  them  destroyed  in  the  hands  of  enemies."  There 
is  evidence  that  this  outburst  of  rabid  pontifical  execration  had 
the  desired  effect  upon  the  spirit  of  the  contumacious  Lewis, 
for  in  September,  1343,  he  wrote  to  the  pope  that  as  a  babe 
longs  for  its  mother's  breast,  so  his  soul  cried  out  for  the  grace 
of  the  pope  and  the  Church. 

In  such  representatives  of  corrupt  papal  administration  all 
sense  of  spiritual  responsibility  was  overshadowed  by  their  thor- 
oughly securalized  ambitions.  The  historian  Gregorovius  says : 
"With  Sixtus  IV  the  priestly  character  of  the  people  began  to 
vanish  and  that  of  territorial  lord  became  so  prominent  that  the 
successors  of  Peter  in  that  era  appeared  as  representatives  of 
Italian  dynasties,  only  accidentally  holding  the  place  of  popes,  and 
wearing  the  tiara  in  the  place  of  the  ducal  crown.  The  thor- 
oughly worldly  schemes  to  which  the  popes  now  devoted  them- 
selves required  more  than  ever  the  use  of  worldly  means  such 
as  financial  speculations,  traffic  in  offices  and  in  matters  of  grace, 
unprincipled  acts  of  statecraft,  and  the  dominance  of  nepotism. 
Never  before  was  nepotism  driven  with  such  recklessness,  papal 
proteges  (in  most  instances  the  actual  bastards  of  the  popes), 
Vatican  princes,  being  brought  upon  the  theater  of  Roman  affairs 
with  every  new  incumbent  of  the  papal  office,  advanced  sud- 
denly to  power,  tyrannized  over  Rome  and  over  the  pope  him- 
self, contended  for  countships  in  a  brief  round  of  craft  and 
intrigue  against  hereditary  lords  and  against  cities,  kept  in  good 
fortune  oftentimes  only  so  long  as  the  pope  lived,  and  founded, 
even  when  their  power  went  to  pieces,  new  families  of  papal 
princes." 

Adequately  to  describe  the  character  of  the  medieval  Church 
from  the  days  of  Wiclif  to  those  of  Luther  would  tax  the 
powers  of  portrayal  possessed  by  a  Dante.  The  plain  facts, 
however,  stated  as  briefly  and  as  simply  as  possible,  carry  their 
own  sad  and  depressing  impression,  without  the  aid  of  a  brilliant 
imagination.  There  is  a  medieval  proverb,  quoted  somewhere 
by  the  historian  Hase,  that  if  a  man  would  enjoy  himself  for  a 
little  while,  let  him  kill  a  chicken ;  if  for  a  year,  let  him  marry 
a  pretty  wife;  if  for  life,  let  him  become  a  priest.  In  this  high 
office  it  had  come  to  pass  that  avarice  and  luxury,  greed  and 


60  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

ambition,  simony  and  extortion,  seemed  to  be  linked  up  together, 
the  papacy  itself  having  set  the  bad  example.  Petrarch  said 
that  the  court  of  the  popes  at  Avignon  was  a  place  where  the 
hope  of  heaven  and  the  fear  of  hell  were  regarded  as  old  fables, 
where  virtue  was  regarded  as  a  thing  for  peasants,  and  sin  was 
looked  upon  as  a  sign  of  manly  independence.  Considering  the 
manifold  apostasies  and  unmeasured  badness  of  many  of  these 
unworthy  successors  of  Peter,  it  is  not  surprising  that  Dante, 
the  great  Florentine,  a  true  and  loyal  son  of  the  Church,  should 
not  only  have  had  the  courage  to  criticise  the  action  of  the 
papacy,  but  to  have  consigned  some  of  its  chief  representatives, 
not  simply  to  purgatory,  but  to  the  deepest  hell.  The  knowl- 
edge of  them  that  has  been  gathered  since,  with  the  passing  of 
the  centuries,  has  not  induced  any  disposition  to  reverse  the  wis- 
dom and  justice  of  Dante's  consignments. 

VII 

The  papal  system  which  had  thus  become  so  degenerate,  was 
not  so  much  evolved  as  created.  It  may  be  said  that  seven  men 
were  the  creators  of  this  vast  piece  of  sacerdotal  and  hierarchical 
machinery,  so  much  like  the  ancient  Empire  of  Rome  in  its 
eleborate  articulation  and  co-ordination  of  officials  and  parts. 
These  seven  men  were  Gelasius  I,  Leo  I,  Gregory  I,  Hadrian  I, 
Nicholas  I,  Gregory  VII,  and  Innocent  III.  From  Innocent  to 
Benedict  XV  the  system,  with  varied  applications  to  changing 
conditions,  has  largely  been  an  inheritance.  Each  of  these  seven 
men  amplified  and  deepened  the  foundations,  and  did  much 
to  enlarge  the  structure  of  this  great  religious  principality  which 
became  the  guiding  and  organizing  power  in  the  Church,  until, 
when  its  power  was  turned  into  omnipotence,  it  became  a  factor 
in  the  Church's  disorganization  and  final  disruption  at  the  time 
of  the  Reformation. 

No  man  had  ever  ascended  the  papal  throne  with  so  preten- 
tious an  idea  of  its  prestige  and  responsibility,  and  no  pope  ever 
confronted  a  more  disordered  state  in  Christendom,  than  Hilde- 
brand,  or  Gregory  VII.  Most  of  the  priests  of  every  country  at 
his  accession  were  legally  married,  though  in  some  places  the 
law  of  celibacy  was  enforced,  while  many  of  them  were  living 
in  illicit  relations.     He  believed  that  his  sacerdocracy  was  of  the 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  61 

will  of  God,  that  it  was  divinely  ordained  and  instituted,  and 
that  it  was  the  only  means  of  maintaining  religion  and  morality 
in  Europe.  His  coming  to  leadership  in  the  Church,  by  popular 
demand,  in  1073,  did  not  so  much  usher  in  as  bring  to  its  highest 
point  the  wave  of  reformation  already  set  in  motion  more  than 
twenty-five  years  before.  His  fierce  and  unyielding  campaign 
against  simony  not  only  filled  the  entire  period  of  his  famous 
pontificate,  but  also  serves  as  a  commentary  on  the  state  of  the 
Church  with  which  he  had  to  deal.  He  was  the  great  organizer 
of  the  papacy,  and  proclaimed  its  absolute  right  in  the  Church. 
The  pope's  word,  thought  he,  is  God's  word,  the  pope's  acts  are 
God's  acts.  He  proclaimed  and  made  effective  the  idea  that  the 
apostolic  chair,  in  a  spiritual  sense,  is  present  everywhere,  and 
that  its  occupant,  judged  by  no  man,  is  to  be  the  judge  of  all. 
Severe  and  uncompromising  as  he  was,  Hildebrand's  soul  was 
stirred  by  the  thought  of  the  greatness  of  his  mission.  He  over- 
threw one  tyranny,  but  in  its  place  he  reared  another  and  more 
intolerable  one.  Hildebrand  has  been  variously  intrepreted. 
Whether  he  was  one  of  the  good  men  of  the  earth  it  is  not  for  us 
fully  to  determine,  but  he  was  unquestionably  one  of  the  great 
of  the  earth. 

Innocent  III  was  the  last  great  maker  of  the  papacy.  He 
entered  upon  his  pontificate  in  1198,  and  reigned  for  eighteen 
years.  From  the  beginning  of  his  rule  he  recognized  the  neces- 
sity of  moral  reformation,  and  to  his  credit  it  must  be  said 
that,  from  the  year  of  his  election  he  endeavored  to  abolish 
pluralism,  luxury,  rapacity,  pride,  arrogance  and  the  other  evils 
that  had  debilitated  and  corrupted  the  Church.  Under  him  the 
papal  theory  reached  its  culmination.  The  earthly  empire  he 
compared  to  the  moon  shining  faintly  from  light  borrowed  from 
the  spiritual  power  of  which  he  was  the  embodiment  and  ex- 
pression. He  wielded  an  almost  absolute  authority,  brought 
the  papal  power  to  its  zenith,  and  made  his  voice  heard  as  none 
other  in  the  public  affairs  of  the  Europe  of  his  day.  He  came 
to  his  exalted  position  with  a  belief  in  man's  utter  depravity,  and 
in  the  pope's  power  to  pardon  all  sin  and  to  remit  all  penances. 
In  his  memorable  administration,  in  which  he  exercised  a  dominion 
hitherto  unattained,  and  never  since  maintained  in  the  same  de- 
gree even  by  the  papacy,  he  reaped  what  Hildebrand  had  sown 
and  filled  in  an  outline  traced  by  his  master  hand  in  the  eleventh 


62  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

century.  He  enforced  his  lofty  claims  as  the  head  of  all  things 
by  compelling  the  prefect  who  represented  the  empire  and  the 
senator  who  represented  the  Romans  to  take  oaths  of  allegiance 
to  himself,  thus  casting  off  the  last  trace  of  an  imperial  yoke. 
After  the  grimmest  medieval  fashion,  he  sent  his  troops  to  lay 
waste  the  properties  of  rebellious  nobles.  He  placed  England 
under  an  interdict  until  the  affrighted  and  superstitious  people 
saw  the  doors  of  their  churches  closed  upon  them,  while,  de- 
prived of  the  seven  sacraments  and  Christian  burial,  they 
imagined  the  jaws  of  a  medieval  hell  gaping  wide  for  their  souls. 
He  drove  priests  and  prelates  out  of  his  kingdom.  In  1215  he 
rebuked  the  barons  of  England  for  their  "infamous  presump- 
tion" at  Runnymede  in  taking  up  arms  against  John  Lackland, 
a  vassal  of  the  Roman  see,  and  denounced  the  Great  Charter  of 
Rights  wrung  from  the  unwilling  hands  of  John  as  a  devil- 
inspired  document,  and  forbade  his  imperial  vassals  to  accede  to 
its  unjust  demands.  He  excommunicated  the  barons  when  they 
refused  to  lay  down  their  arms,  and  suspended  Stephen  Lang- 
don,  his  own  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  when  that  prelate  re- 
fused, on  the  ground  that  it  was  dictated  by  false  representa- 
tions, to  promulgate  the  sentence. 

Innocent  had,  within  the  space  of  ten  years,  raised  the  power 
of  the  papacy  in  England  to  its  supreme  height,  and  then 
dealt  it  a  blow  from  which  it  could  never  recover.  He  taxed 
the  clergy,  confiscated  the  funds  of  monks,  and  forbade  nobles 
to  wear  costly  furs  or  eat  sumptuous  dinners,  or  to  indulge  in 
sports  at  tournaments.  He  gave  countenance  to  the  monstrous 
crime  of  persecuting  the  Albigenses,  in  that  historical  butchery 
of  a  brave  reforming  people,  whose  bones,  as  said  John  Milton, 
"lie  bleaching  on  the  Alpine  mountains  cold."  His  ideal  was 
papal  power,  but  of  the  attribute  of  love  he  knew  but  little.  In 
the  interest  of  his  papal  ideals  he  sacrificed  himself.  He  was 
one  of  the  great  makers  of  the  papacy.  Nearer  than  any  other 
who  went  before  him,  this  alleged  successor  of  St.  Peter  came  to 
realizing  that  ideal  after  which  he  was  striving.  He  it  was  who 
put  the  finishing  touches  on  that  mighty  Colossus  which  Luther 
by  and  by  was  to  smite  to  its  undoing.  He  advanced  claims  as 
extravagant  as  Hildebrand,  and  succeeded  in  making  them  more 
effective  in  their  execution.  He  could  say,  "The  Lord  be- 
queathed to  Peter  not  merely  the  government  of  the  universal 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  63 

Church,  but  the  whole  secular  estate."  Gregory  VII  could  have 
said  no  more. 

Boniface  VIII  was  the  last  great  representative  of  the  papal 
ideal  in  its  earlier  and  more  austere  and  autocratic  medieval 
form.  He  attempted  to  give  the  last  notable  expression  to  the 
world  power  of  the  papacy,  but  not  with  the  old-time  success  of 
Nicholas  I,  Gregory  VII  or  Innocent  III.  Boniface  was  bold 
and  keen,  and  had  made  himself  acquainted  with  the  political  sit- 
uation in  Europe.  He  had  adopted  the  Hildebrandian  ideals 
with  their  immeasurable  pretensions,  and  ventured  to  enforce 
his  authority  over  princes.  But  the  papacy  was  passing  into  a 
period  of  comparative  impotence.  Influences  were  at  work 
which  were  not  only  to  become  fatal  to  the  worldly  grandeur  of 
the  pope  and  to  his  life,  but  to  his  fame  to  the  latest  ages. 
Unfortunately  for  the  colossal  piece  of  ecclesiastical  machinery 
of  which  the  pope  was  the  head,  the  days  of  declining  power 
came  just  at  the  time  when  the  eyes  of  Europe  were  growing 
sharper.  It  was  the  period  of  the  rising  renaissance  of  classical 
culture,  and,  in  Germany  especially,  of  biblical  exposition  and 
religious  earnestness.  It  was  a  period  rich  in  civic  development 
and  prosperity,  when  keen-eyed  laymen  and  scholars  of  dis- 
tinction were  coming  to  the  front.  Obedience  to  the  pope  as  a 
condition  of  salvation  was  encountering  manifold  difficulties. 
There  were  signs  of  rising  revolt  against  the  abuses  and  usurpa- 
tions of  the  ancient  orders  of  things.  The  general  of  one  of  the 
orders  impeached  Pope  John  XXII  for  heresy.  William  of  Oc- 
cam, "the  Doctor  Invincibilis,''  one  of  the  most  astute  of  the  later 
schoolmen,  and  others  assailed  the  existing  institutions  with 
powerful  assaults  of  invective.  The  pope,  honored  as  the  "vicar 
of  Christ,"  was  denounced  as  the  "anti-Christ."  "The  dragon 
with  the  seven  heads,"  and  other  designations  big  with  bad  mean- 
ing. Crushing  indictments  of  the  papal  pretensions  and  vindica- 
tion of  the  secular  power,  were  launched  in  quick  succession  by 
such  men  as  Arnold  of  Brescia  and  Marsilio  of  Padua.  The 
basis  upon  which  papal  claims  had  been  made  to  rest  in  forged 
decretals  and  conciliar  declarations  was  at  last  being  subjected 
to  scrutiny. 

The  resourcefulness  of  the  popes  is  a  matter  of  some  note.  A 
jubilee,  for  example,  had  been  announced  for  1390,  and  from 
that  the  pope  had  reaped  a  rich  harvest.     But  that  did  not  deter 


64  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

his  thrifty  successor  from  also  reaping  another  golden  harvest 
from  another  jubilee  in  the  year  1400,  after  the  lapse  of  only  a 
single  decade. 

Being  fearful  of  the  band  of  brigands,  robbers  and  ravishers 
which  infested  the  papal  estates,  many  pilgrims  from  Germany 
and  Scandinavia  were  deterred  from  coming  to  Rome.  But  the 
reigning  Pope,  Boniface,  met  this  emergency  in  the  interest  of 
the  piety  of  these  frightened  children  of  the  Church  and  the  in- 
crease of  the  resources  of  his  own  treasury  by  enacting  that  such 
pilgrims  from  lands  of  the  north  might  obtain  the  same  pardon 
granted  their  southern  brethren  by  visiting  certain  shrines  nearer 
home  and  paying  the  papal  agents  the  cost  of  the  coveted  jour- 
ney to  Rome.  Such  simoniacal  practices  are  established  and  ad- 
mitted by  papists  as  well  as  asserted  by  the  reformers  of  the 
day.  We  have  the  official  assurance  of  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance that  John  XXIII  "sold  absolution  from  punishment  and 
guilt,"  together  with  other  and  abundant  indications  of  the  con- 
tinuance of  this  abuse.  Even  the  gamblers  and  prostitutes  had 
to  pay  the  tithe  from  their  infamous  earnings,  while  complainants 
were  mercilessly  punished.  One  historian  asserts  that  this  man 
Baldessare  Cossa,  who  later  became  Pope,  when  a  cardinal  deacon, 
had  violated  no  less  than  two  hundred  maidens  and  matrons  of 
Rome.  He  pressed  the  sale  of  indulgences  so  flagrantly  and  by 
such  objectionable  agents  that  the  Bohemian  reformers  burned  the 
bull  announcing  the  terms  of  the  sale,  in  the  streets.  He  was 
described  as  "addicted  to  the  flesh,"  "the  dregs  of  vice,"  "a  mirror 
of  infamy,"  "guilty  of  poisoning,  murder  and  persistent  addition 
to  the  vices  of  the  flesh." 

And  yet  it  is  not  to  the  moral  indigation  caused  by  this 
man's  character  that  he  owed  his  fall,  but  to  the  treachery  of  the 
Emperor  Sigismund  and  the  Council  of  Constance,  both  bent  on 
restoring  at  least  the  outward  unity  of  the  Church.  He  was 
made  a  victim  of  the  growing  zeal  for  the  unification  of  the  dis- 
tracted Church.  It  was  all  the  while  becoming  more  and  more 
evident  that  reform  must  come  from  without  the  Church.  Popes 
and  cardinals  could  not  effect  it,  and  in  the  prevailing  creed  there 
was  no  canonical  basis  for  the  action  of  a  council  in  defiance 
of  them.  But  notwithstanding,  one  hundred  and  two  years  be- 
fore Luther's  theses,  this  pope,  who  had  preached  the  opening 
sermon   of   the   Council   of    Constance    from   the   text,    "Speak 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  65 

every  man  the  truth,"  was  deposed  and  disgraced  by  the  same 
Council  that  ordered  the  burning  of  Huss,  and  declared  to  be 
''unworthy,  useless  and  harmful."  On  the  inside  the  papacy  was 
slowly  discerning  the  rising  tide  of  revolt,  while  on  the  outside 
the  new  culture  was  sharpening  the  pens  of  the  critics. 

Three  typical  popes  of  Luther's  own  day,  and  each  in  his  own 
way,  indicate  in  their  different  careers  the  imposing  and  obstinate 
array  of  obstacles  the  reformer  had  to  face  in  the  great  work  he 
wrought  in  the  name  of  the  Head  of  the  Church. 

Alexander  VI  was  the  pope  during  whose  pontificate  the 
lowest  depths  of  degradation  of  the  papacy  was  reached.  In  the 
year  in  which  Christopher  Columbus  discovered  America,  and 
when  Luther  was  but  nine  years  old,  this  man,  hitherto  known 
as  Cardinal  Roderigo  Borgia,  ascended  the  papal  throne.  He 
pursued  the  same  policy  as  Pope  Sixtus  IV,  who  died  when 
Luther  was  but  one  year  old,  and  who  had  conducted  himself  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  warrant  the  belief  that  he  regarded  him- 
self not  only  as  the  official  head  of  the  Church,  but  as  not  even 
being  indirectly  related  to  Christianity  as  a  moral  and  religious 
system.  With  more  boldness  and  skill,  and  with  greater  good 
fortune,  Alexander  followed  in  the  way  of  the  wicked  Sixtus. 
He  was  certainly  the  most  notorious  of  the  venal  and  secular 
popes  of  the  period  of  the  Renaissance,  and  probably  the  most 
immoral,  though  it  is  but  fair  to  say  that  in  the  matter  of  wicked- 
ness he  had  some  formidable  pontifical  rivals  among  his  imme- 
diate predecessors,  such  as  Sixtus  IV  and  Innocent  VIII. 
Under  the  influence  of  Alexander  the  papacy  sank  to  the  level  of 
other  Italian  principalities  and  showed  itself,  like  them,  also, 
ready  to  sacrifice  even  the  welfare  of  Italy  for  its  own  tem- 
poral advantage,  and  to  further  the  designs  of  the  Borgia  fam- 
ily. The  sole  aim  of  this  pope  in  securing  the  papacy  seemed  to 
be  the  formation  of  an  independent  kingdom  for  the  benefit  of 
his  own  family.  Quite  in  hagnony  with  the  character  of  the 
man,  he  had  obtained  the  coveted  tiara  by  intrigue,  and  after  one 
of  the  most  corrupt  elections  known  in  history.  He  never 
shrank  from  any  form  of  diplomatic  intrigue,  nor  from  war  or 
assassination,  in  order  to  realize  his  purposes  and  carry  out  his 
designs  in  behalf  of  his  own.  He  made  himself  stronger  than 
his  rival  secular  princes  by  using  the  spiritual  weapons  of  excom- 
munication and  interdict,  which  they  could  not  use  and  which  had 


66  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

not  yet  been  rendered  entirely  ineffective.  In  a  country  pro- 
verbial in  the  sixteenth  century  for  the  terrible  laxity  of  its 
morals,  he  was  one  of  the  worst  of  his  time.  The  Holy  Father 
of  Christendom  had  abandoned  even  the  pretence  of  decency, 
and  followed  a  course  of  life  not  merely  openly  secular,  but  im- 
pudently and  scandalously  immoral.  He  was  one  of  the  vilest, 
most  sensual  and  cruel  men  of  whom  history  affords  us  any 
knowledge.  He  may  be  fairly  rated  as  the  culminating  figure 
in  a  considerable  group  of  pontifical  badness.  Surrounded  by 
troops  of  courtesans,  as  a  kind  of  papal  monstrosity  he  made  the 
Vatican  the  scene  of  orgies  that  would  have  satisfied  the  de- 
praved tastes  of  Caligula,  Commodus,  or  Heliogabalus.  He 
despoiled  the  Church  of  its  rightful  adornments  as  the  bride  of 
Christ,  and  exposed  her  to  the  European  nations  in  all  her 
hideous  and  unbecoming  medieval  deformities,  so  that  she  had 
become  a  byword  and  reproach,  making  inevitable  the  coming 
revolt  on  the  part  of  the  people  who  shared  in  a  clearer  appre- 
hension of  the  gospel  and  of  the  nature  and  sanctity  of  the 
Church. 

The  papal  and  other  documents  relating  to  the  children  of 
Alexander,  at  least  six  in  number,  and  which  have  been  found 
in  the  Vatican  archives  and  in  other  places,  reveal  an  extraor- 
dinary moral  degeneracy  and  laxity  at  Rome.  The  baseness  of 
the  pope's  character,  the  sensuality  of  his  court  and  the  mys- 
terious murders  which  filled  Rome  with  terror,  gave  currency  to 
stories  which  pictured  him,  as  well  as  his  children,  Lucretia  and 
Caesar,  as  monsters  of  badness.  In  his  absence  from  the  Vati- 
can he  left  Lucretia  as  his  representative  at  the  papal  residence, 
while  the  world  wondered  at  the  abnormal  spectacle  of  a  pope's 
bastard,  and  a  woman  at  that,  sitting  as  the  regent  on  the  steps 
of  the  throne  of  St.  Peter  and  exercising  supreme  authority  even 
at  the  fountain  head  of  papal  dominion  and  authority.  He  lived 
in  open  illicit  relations  with  one  concubine  named  Rosa  Vanozza, 
and  without  any  regard  for  the  disorderly  proceeding  or  any  ap- 
parent compunction  used  his  high  position  to  promote  the  inter- 
ests of  his  son  Caesar  Borgia  whom  he  had  in  turn  made  his 
bishop  and  archbishop.  The  vices  of  this  Caesar  were  equal  to 
those  of  his  father.  In  a  bad  age  he  abandoned  the  priesthood 
that  he  might  the  more  freely,  without  any  kind  of  ecclesiastical 
restraint,  run  his  career  of  crime.     Among  his  other  enormities 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  67 

it  is  alleged  that  he  mixed  the  cup  of  poison  which  his  father 
drank  by  mistake  and  from  which  he  died  at  the  end  of  his  ill- 
spent  life  as  an  unworthy  priest,  an  apostate  in  his  high  vocation 
and,  as  the  supreme  pontiff,  a  traitor  to  the  spiritual  interests 
of  the  Church  of  which  he  was  the  avowed  spiritual  and  titular 
head. 

Of  this  Caesar,  the  degenerate  son  of  a  bad  father,  it  has  been 
said  that  he  was  at  once  the  image,  the  ideal  and  the  terror  of 
his  age. 

Alexander's  chief  objects  in  life  seem  to  have  been  his  own 
personal  security  and  the  advancement  of  his  own  children.  In 
view  of  the  loftiness  and  sacredness  of  his  high  position  he  was 
a  selfish  voluptuary  of  the  most  ignoble  type — a  man  who  in  the 
name  and  for  the  ends  of  religion  employed  fraud,  treachery  and 
crime.  The  condition  in  which  the  papacy  soon  found  itself 
showed  that  his  policy  had  not  even  the  redeeming  merit  of  ef- 
fecting the  security  of  the  hierarchy  over  which  he  so  ignomin- 
iously  presided. 

When  Alexander  died  on  August  8,  1503,  but  two  years  before 
Luther  entered  the  Augustinian  monastery  at  Erfurt,  it  is  said 
that  his  departure  called  out  unspeakable  joy  at  Rome.  He  had 
proven  himself  to  be  most  hostile  to  the  interests  of  that  re- 
ligion whose  chief  exponent  he  was  supposed  to  be.  Even  he 
had  acknowledged,  although  it  must  be  confessed  somewhat 
tardily,  the  need  for  reform.  But  this  impulse  to  better  things 
soon  passed  away  in  the  stress  of  politics  and  dynastic  injustice. 
But  even  Alexander  VI  made  his  contribution  to  reform.  His 
secularization  of  the  Church,  his  scandalous  life  and  the  indigna- 
tion it  aroused  contributed  in  no  inconsiderable  degree  to  pre- 
pare the  way  for  that  new  religious  movement,  then  near  at 
hand,  and  which  was  destined  to  open  up  a  new  and  brighter 
chapter  in  the  history  of  Christianity.  He  Who  hath  all  power 
and  Who  directeth  all  things  by  the  word  of  His  power  could  so 
order  it  that  even  this  notoriously  wicked  pope  should  become, 
in  spite  of  himself  and  by  reason  of  his  very  enormities,  a  herald 
and  forerunner  of  reform. 

The  state  of  the  Church  could  be  expected  to  be  in  nothing 
superior  to  its  bad  but  tolerated  head.  Of  one  prince  of  the 
ecclesiastical  establishment,  who  had  been  drawn  from  the  ob- 
scurity of  a  Franciscan  monastery,  it  was  said  that  his  chief  mis- 


68  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

tress  flaunted  8000  ducats'  worth  of  pearls  on  her  embroidered 
slippers.  In  one  night  of  gambling  one  lay  prince  lost  to  one  of 
the  unregenerate  cardinals  100,000  ducats.  Another  cardinal  left 
at  his  death  a  fortune  of  100,000  ducats,  largely  the  result  of  his 
skill  in  the  same  unrighteous  industry,  while  still  another  of  these 
papal  electors  was  the  leading  sportsman  of  his  day  in  fashion- 
able Roman  society. 

The  state  of  Rome  was  in  accord  with  that  of  the  sacred  col- 
lege of  cardinals.  Prosperous  criminals  who  were  by  some 
chance,  or  by  some  failure  to  recognize  the  fact  of  their  opulence, 
arrested,  bought  their  liberty  at  the  Vatican.  The  incidental 
allusions  of  contemporaries  to  the  condition  of  Rome  make 
somber,  and  some  of  it  grewsome,  reading.  A  writer  in  the 
"American  Catholic  Quarterly  Review,"  as  late  as  1900  ob- 
serves "that  Borgia  secured  his  election  through  the  rankest 
simony  is  a  fact  too  well  authenticated  to  admit  a  doubt."  Fre- 
quently prurient  comedies  and  still  more  prurient  dances  en- 
livened the  sacred  palace.  In  1501  one  historian  dispassionately 
notes  in  his  diary  that  the  pope  was  unable  to  attend  to  his  spirit- 
ual duties,  but  was  not  prevented  from  enjoying  in  the  Vatican 
what  was  known  as  a  "Chestnut  Dance"  and  other  performances 
of  fifty  nude  courtesans  whom  Caesar  Borgia  had  brought  in  for 
the  pleasure  of  his  father.  This  even  a  fair-minded  Romanist 
ought  to  be  willing  to  see — that  there  has  been  no  Borgia  among 
the  popes  since  the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

In  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Church  was  moving  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  sordid  financial  and  political  intrigue.  In  the  fast 
growing  splendor  and  opulence  of  Rome  the  Church  was  nearing 
the  edge  of  a  formidable  chasm  of  which  even  the  vicar  of  Christ 
seemed  to  be  unaware. 

VIII 

Another  of  these  Renaissance  popes,  who  in  himself  and  his 
career  indicated  the  urgent  need  of  reformation,  was  the  martial 
"Vicar  of  Christ"  known  in  the  history  of  the  papacy  as  Julius 
II,  who,  after  the  brief  pontificate  of  Pius  III,  that  lasted  less 
than  a  month,  succeeded  the  infamous  Alexander  VI.  If  the 
one  object  of  Alexander  had  been  the  advancement  of  his  own 
children,  that  of  Julius  was  to  build  up  and  strengthen  the  tem- 
poral sovereignty  of  the  pope.     He  ascended  the  papal   throne 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  69 

in  1503,  while  Luther  was  yet  a  student  in  the  University  of 
Erfurt.  His  ambition,  if  more  respectable  than  that  of  his 
immediate  predecessors,  was  yet  altogether  worldly.  He  was  de- 
termined to  make  the  papal  state  the  strongest  political  power  in 
Italy.  He  was  the  most  warlike  among  all  the  successors  of  St. 
Peter.  It  was  he  who  afforded  the  world  of  his  day  the  spec- 
tacle of  the  supreme  religious  teacher  of  Christendom  and  the 
Christian  King  of  France,  Louis  XII,  the  "First  son  of  the 
Church,"  engaged  in  war  with  one  another.  At  the  opening  of 
his  campaign  against  Louis,  Julius  was  smitten  with  a  sickness 
that  was  supposed  to  be  unto  death.  But  to  the  amazement  of 
his  court,  he  left  his  bed,  in  January,  1511,  and  betook  himself  to 
the  camp  of  his  soldiers.  Snow  covered  the  ground  but  the 
pope  set  an  example  to  his  papal  troops  by  enduring  all  the  hard- 
ships of  the  camp.  At  his  death  he  was  known  as  the  "pontefice 
terrible." 

A"  satire  known  as  "Julius  Exclusus,"  which  appeared  after  the 
pontiff's  death,  represented  him  as  appearing  at  the  gate  of  heaven 
with  great  din  of  warlike  noises.  Peter  suggested  that  as  he 
was  a  brave  man  and  had  a  large  army  and  much  gold  and  was 
also  a  busy  builder,  he  might  build  his  own  paradise.  At  the 
same  time  the  apostle  reminded  him  that  he  would  have  to  build 
the  foundations  deep  and  strong  so  as  to  resist  the  assaults  of  the 
devil.  Julius  retorted,  so  the  story  runs,  by  peremptorily  giving 
Peter  three  weeks  to  open  heaven  to  him  and  that  in  case  of  re- 
fusal he  would  begin  a  siege  with  60,000  men. 

Whatever  the  gain  may  have  been  which  the  policy  of  Julius 
brought  to  the  papacy,  it  certainly  involved  in  the  issue  great  haz- 
ard and  loss.  He  was  a  man  of  fine  mental  endowments,  capable 
of  sympathizing  with  all  things  great  in  life  and  art,  but  he  was  a 
secular  prince  wearing  the  papal  tiara.  He  was  a  soldier  wholly 
devoted  to  war,  in  which  he  led  in  person.  Much  of  the  time  he 
lived  in  the  field,  subdued  his  Italian  neighbors,  and,  had  his  reign 
lasted  long  enough,  would  no  doubt  have  conquered  all  Italy. 
He  fought  like  a  soldier  and  lived  like  a  prince,  but  he  was  eco- 
nomical in  financial  matters,  even  though  he  was  the  patron  of 
Bramante,  Michelangelo  and  Raphael.  Devoted  to  war,  he  yet 
valued  the  arts  of  peace.  The  foundations  of  St.  Peter's  had 
been  traced  by  one  of  his  predecessors,  Nicholas  V,  but  they  were 
laid  by  Julius,  who  failed  not  to  encourage  the  rare  group  of  men 


70  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

of  genius  who  adorned  the  period  of  his  pontificate,  so  full  of 
contradictions.  Of  him  a  contemporary  says :  "He  was  for- 
tunate rather  than  prudent,  courageous  rather  than  strong,  but 
ambitious  and  beyond  measure  desirous  of  every  kind  of  great- 
ness." Piety  was  not  one  of  the  notable  traits  of  Julius'  reign, 
but  it  afforded  an  agreeable  relief  from  the  coarse  scandals  of  the 
reign  of  Alexander  VI.  He  had,  it  is  true,  a  family  of  three 
daughters,  in  strong  contrast  with  the  Hildebrandian  ideals,  but 
the  festivities  attending  the  marriage  of  one  of  them  were  not 
appointed  for  the  Vatican,  nor  did  any  of  them  give  offence  by 
their  ostentatious  presence  in  the  pontifical  palace. 

But  Julius  sacrificed  all  interest  in  the  moral  and  religious  con- 
cerns of  Christendom,  even  though  the  firm  establishment  of  the 
states  of  the  Church  for  the  next  three  centuries  was  his  work. 
To  the  end  he  kept  up  his  tortuous  diplomacy.  In  spite  of  his 
own  bull  against  simony,  the  curia  remained  as  corrupt  as  ever, 
and  money  continued  to  be  raised  in  all  the  evil  ways  which  were 
the  fruits  of  the  evil  resourcefulness  of  the  papal  s)^stem.  From 
a  worldly  standpoint,  he  had  exalted  the  papal  throne  to  the  emi- 
nence of  the  national  thrones  of  Europe.  In  the  terrific  convul- 
sion which  Luther's  Reformation  produced,  it  has  been  said  that 
"the  institution  of  the  papacy  might  have  fallen  in  ruins  had  not 
Julius  re-established  it  by  force  of  arms." 

But  this  pope  who  did  so  much  in  a  worldly  way,  and  whose 
patronage  of  art  was  so  commendable,  did  not  have  the  temper  of 
a  reformer,  and  his  eyes,  so  beclouded  by  temporal  ideals  and 
concerns,  could  not  discern  the  signs  of  the  times.  One  of  the 
best  accredited  historians  of  the  Church,  Dr.  Schaff,  writing  of 
the  period  immediately  preceding  the  Reformation,  says :  "In  vain 
will  the  student  look  for  signs  that  Julius  II  had  any  intimation 
of  the  new  religious  reforms  which  the  times  called  for  and 
which  Luther  began.  What  measures  this  pope,  strong  in  will 
and  bold  in  execution,  might  have  employed  if  the  movement  in 
the  north  had  begun  in  his  day,  no  one  can  surmise.  The  monk 
of  Erfurt  walked  the  streets  in  Rome  during  this  pontificate  for 
the  first  and  only  time.  While  Luther  was  ascending  the  scala 
sancta  on  his  knees,  and  running  about  to  the  churches,  wishing 
his  parents  were  in  purgatory  that  he  might  pray  them  out,  Julius 
was  having  perfected  a  magnificently  jeweled  tiara,  costing 
200,000  ducats,  which  he  put  on  for  the  first  time  on  the  anniver- 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  71 

sary  of  his  coronation,  1511.  These  two  men,  both  of  humble 
beginnings,  would  have  been  more  a  match  for  each  other  than 
Luther  and  Julius'  successor,  the  Medici,  the  man  of  luxurious 
culture." 

It  is  said  that  there  was  great  joy  among  the  people  in  Rome  in 
the  year  1513,  when  it  was  announced,  in  due  medieval  form,  that 
Julius  II  was  dead,  that  their  spiritual  father,  whose  blessing  they 
so  devoutly  received,  was  no  more,  that  his  fierce  and  warlike 
spirit  had  fled  forever.  Men  respected  Julius,  but  they  feared 
and  hated  him.  Having  succeeded  in  making  the  policy  of  the 
Church  more  respectable,  he  had  not  even  made  a  pretence  of 
raising  it  above  its  purely  secular  course.  Accordingly,  when  the 
tolling  of  the  great  bell  in  the  Capitol,  which  was  sounded  only  on 
such  solemn  occasions,  announced  to  Rome  and  to  the  Church 
that  the  Holy  Father  had  been  deposed  by  death,  there  was  ap- 
preciation of  him  as  the  founder  of  the  papal  states,  but  little 
veneration  for  his  memory,  and  still  less  affection  for  him  as  the 
chief  shepherd  of  the  flock  of  Christ,  whose  vicar  on  earth  he  had 
claimed  to  be. 

The  warlike  Julius  was  succeeded  on  the  pontifical  throne  by 
the  chief  voluptuary  of  his  time,  Giovanni  di  Medici,  who  took 
the  official  title  of  Leo  X.  Men  smiled,  it  was  said,  upon  his  suc- 
cession, felicitating  themselves,  as  they  believed,  on  the  fact  that 
he  was  more  like  a  gentle  lamb  than  a  fierce  lion.  The  papacy  of 
Leo  is  great  in  the  history  of  culture,  but  insignificant  in  the  his- 
tory of  religion  and  the  Church.  If  he  shared  but  little  in  the 
martial  tastes  of  his  predecessor,  he  was  equally  secular  in  tone. 
In  place  of  military  tactics  and  strategy,  he  put  the  arts  of  diplom- 
acy and  devotion  to  heathen  ideals  of  culture.  Politics  and  lit- 
erature filled  up  his  horizon.  He  loved  pleasure,  and  was  an 
adept  in  duplicity.  The  story  was  widely  believed  that  at  the 
opening  of  his  pontificate  he  had  given  expression  to  his  epicur- 
ean conception  of  the  supreme  office  in  the  Church  in  writing  to 
his  brother  Julian:  "Let  us  enjoy  the  papacy,  since  God  has 
given  it  to  us."  He  became  pope  four  years  before  Luther's 
theses,  but  any  spiritual  conception  of  his  exalted  office  came  not 
with  him  to  the  papal  chair.  A  liberal  patron  of  learning,  fond 
of  sumptuous  feasts  and  splendid  outlays,  intent  only  upon 
worldly  advantage,  he  did  nothing  to  appease  the  growing  de 
mand   for  reform,  which,  when  at  length  it   came  to  his   own 


72  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

pontificate  with  irresistible  energy  and  began  to  revolutionize 
Europe,  he  estimated  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  squabble  between 
jealous  and  bigoted  monastic  orders. 

The  festivities  at  the  new  pope's  coronation  showed  at  once 
to  all  men  that  a  reign  of  unusual  worldly  magnificence  had  been 
inaugurated.  The  pomp  and  splendor  of  the  great  procession  on 
that  occasion  was  famous  even  in  that  day  of  gorgeous  pageants. 
In  his  patronage  of  art  and  the  pursuit  of  the  political  interests 
of  the  house  of  Medici,  Leo  seems  to  have  been  unmindful  of  the 
real  interests  of  Christendom.  In  him  paganism  seemed  to  have 
installed  itself  in  the  seat  of  papal  dominion.  Among  his  favor- 
ite amusements  the  chase  occupied  a  leading  place,  although  such 
a  form  of  pleasure  was  forbidden  by  canonical  law  to  the 
earthly  vicegerent  of  God,  and  other  clergy.  Portions  of  the  year 
he  passed,  booted  and  spurred,  in  his  devotion  to  such  unsancti- 
fied  pursuits.  At  one  assembling  of  this  order  the  pope  found 
himself  in  the  midst  of  eighteen  cardinals,  besides  other  prelates, 
musicians,  actors  and  servants,  the  ecclesiastical  sportsmen  being 
aided  by  a  pack  of  sixty  or  seventy  dogs.  Leo,  too,  was  fond  of 
the  theater,  being  accustomed  to  attend  plays  in  the  palaces  of  the 
cardinals,  those  of  rich  bankers,  in  St.  Angelo,  and  looking  on  as 
they  were  performed  in  the  Vatican  itself — some  of  them,  it  is 
said,  being  of  the  lascivious  order.  Festivities  of  all  sorts  ab- 
sorbed much  of  the  pope's  attention,  the  horizon  of  his  outlook 
seeming  always  to  be  his  own  pleasure.  He  encouraged  the  vanity 
of  wretched  poetasters,  and  rewarded  them  with  wine  mixed 
with  water  in  proportion  to  the  blunders  made  in  their  sometimes 
wretched  versification  and  rhyming.  The  number  of  such 
blunders  that  called  for  this  peculiar  form  of  remuneration,  it  is 
said,  was  large.  He  had  a  vulgar  kind  of  delight  in  practical 
forms  of  joking,  totally  unbecoming  in  an  ordinary  representa- 
tive of  the  Christian  religion,  not  to  say  anything  of  the  alleged 
vicegerent  of  the  Almighty.  He  was  habitually  frivolous,  play- 
ing cards  much  of  the  time  with  the  cardinals,  and  concluding  the 
game  by  contributing  money  to  the  bystanders. 

In  spending  so  much  of  his  leisure  in  sports  and  games,  the 
pope  was  n*ot  only  indulging  in  that  which  gave  him  pleasure  but, 
as  was  affirmed  of  him  by  a  contemporary,  because  he  also  had 
been  led  to  think  that  indulgence  in  such  recreation  served 
the  additional  purpose   of  prolonging  his  pontifical   life.     Con- 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  73 

certs  and  comedies  were  features  of  many  festive  evenings 
passed  within  the  sacred  courts  of  the  Vatican,  when  the  guests 
frequently  numbered  as  many  as  two  thousand.  His  success  at 
sports,  it  is  also  said,  had  something  to  do  with  the  granting  of 
pontifical  favor,  those  seeking  papal  advancement  finding  the  best 
time  to  present  their  petitions  to  be  at  the  end  of  a  day  of  suc- 
cessful hunting  of  the  stag  or  fishing  in  the  Lake  of  Bolsema. 

During  Leo's  pontificate  a  new  social  order  at  Rome  came  into 
existence,  an  order  founded  upon  luxury,  art  and  wealth,  the 
leading  features  of  Italian  papal  civilization  having  become  spa- 
cious palaces,  splendid  and  lavish  entertainments  and  a  court  of 
literary  dependents  and  obsequious  flunkeys.  Princely  luxuri- 
ousness  absorbed  the  papal  funds.  Opulent  bankers,  such  as 
Strozzi,  gave  great  banquets  at  which  the  cardinals  of  the 
Church  fraternized  with  courtesans,  while  the  pope,  personally 
temperate  after  the  irregularities  of  his  youth,  was  sometimes  in 
attendance.  Men  of  abnormal  appetities,  one  conspicuous  ex- 
ample being  a  Dominican  friar,  were  brought  to  the  table  of  the 
holy  father  to  amuse  him  and  his  guests  by  an  exhibition  of  their 
incredible  gluttony.  At  carnival  time  the  pope  entered  without 
restraint  into  the  wild  gaiety  of  Rome,  and  comedies  of  libidin- 
ous character  were  staged  before  the  eyes  of  the  man  who 
claimed  to  sit  in  the  chair  of  St.  Peter,  but  who  had,  in  fact,  de- 
spoiled his  high  office  of  its  sacredness  and  prostituted  it  into  a 
vehicle  of  his  own  carnal  propensities.  This  reigning  head  of 
Christendom  had  but  few  spiritual  interests  and  but  little  per- 
sonal religion.  Of  him  it  was  wittily  said  that  his  learning  and 
fine  tastes  would  have  made  him  a  perfect  pope,  if  he  had  but 
combined  with  these  attainments  some  knowledge  of  religious 
matters  and  some  inclination  to  piety.  By  some  writers  Leo  has 
been  commended  for  his  fasts,  but  it  should  be  remembered  that 
his  weekly  self-abnegation  of  this  order  was  intended  rather  to 
reduce  the  flesh  than  to  subdue  it.  A  wit,  a  scholar  and  an  epi- 
cure, he  set  himself  diligently  to  enjoy  that  which  had  been  con- 
ferred upon  him.  When  not  engaged  in  the  pursuit  of  grosser 
pleasures  of  the  life  that  now  is,  he  was  dabbling  in  European 
politics. 

Of  this  Leo  X,  so  destitute  of  seriousness  and  knowledge  of 
the  situation  confronting  him  when  the  Reformation  came,  it  has 
been  said  by  Bishop  Creighton,  one  of  the  fairest  historians  of 


74  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

the  papacy,  "He  studied  his  personal  appearance,  he  was  proud 
of  his  delicately  formed  hands,  and  called  attention  to  them  by 
wearing  a  profusion  of  splendid  rings.  He  chose  to  live  in 
public,  and  surrounded  himself  with  amusing  companions;  he  en- 
joyed a  laugh,  and  his  mirth  was  not  always  refined.  He  took 
pleasure  in  the  vulgar  witticism  of  buffoons,  and  found  cynical 
delight  in  the  sight  of  human  nature  reduced  to  the  lowest  level 
of  animalism.  He  encouraged  by  his  laughter  portentous  feats 
of  gluttony,  and  though  habitually  temperate  himself,  he  liked  to 
see  the  eyes  of  his  guests  glisten  with  undisguised  enjoyment  at 
the  dainty  fare  which  his  table  set  before  them.  Sometimes  he 
played  tricks  upon  their  voracity  and  served  unclean  animals, 
such  as  monkeys  and  crows,  dressed  with  rich  sauces  which  be- 
guiled the  palates  of  his  guests,  whose  confusion  was  great  when 
they  discovered  the  truth." 

In  behalf  of  Leo  it  has  sometimes  been  said  that  his  qualities 
were  those  of  the  epoch  to  which  Italy  long  looked  back  as  the 
period  of  its  greatest  glory.  It  may  be  so,  but  to  him  belongs  the 
unenviable  distinction  of  having  turned  the  Vatican,  the  dwelling 
place  of  God's  vicegerent  on  earth,  which  he  claimed  it  to  be,  into 
the  house  of  frivolity  and  reveling,  and  of  so  steeping  himself  in 
the  pleasures  of  time  and  sense  as  to  have  rendered  him  oblivious 
of  the  impending  catastrophe  in  the  north.  Lavish  without  re- 
flection, the  pope  had  not  only  exhausted  all  his  spiritual  arts  but 
his  treasury  as  well,  the  one  rendering  him  bankrupt  as  a  moral 
and  religious  influence  and  the  other  inducing  him  to  resort  to 
mercenary  expedients,  unscriptural  in  character  and  revolting  to 
the  most  enlightened  Christian  judgment  of  the  times. 

Such  were  the  popes  of  the  Renaissance.  Luther  saw,  Julius 
II  on  his  visit  to  Rome  in  1511,  and  Leo  was  pope  when  Tetzel's 
disgraceful  huckstering  of  indulgences  roused  the  soul  of  the 
great  Reformer  and  stirred  his  moral  indignation.  Leo  had 
made  some  pretence  at  reform,  but  the  sincerity  of  that  was 
doubted  and  the  results  showed  its  ineffectiveness.  Decrees 
were  passed  for  the  reformation  of  the  Roman  Court  and  the 
repression  of  concubinage,  blasphemy  and  simony  among  the  in- 
ferior clergy.  In  the  year  before  the  nailing  up  of  Luther's 
theses,  Leo  had  also  issued  a  bull  in  which  he  renewed  and  re- 
affirmed the  famous  bull  Unam  Sanctum,  issued  by  Boniface 
VIII,   in  November,    1302,   against   Philip  the   Fair  of   France. 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  75 

This  bull  contains  this  passage :  "There  are  two  swords,  the 
spiritual  and  the  temporal.  Our  Lord  said  not  of  these  two 
swords,  'It  is  too  much'  but  Tt  is  enough.'  Both  are  in  the  power 
of  the  Church,  the  one  the  spiritual,  to  be  used  by  the  Church, 
the  other  the  material,  for  the  Church;  the  former,  that  of  the 
priests,  the  latter  that  of  kings  and  soldiers,  to  be  wielded  at 
the  command  and  at  the  sufferance  of  the  priest.  One  sword 
must  be  under  the  other,  the  temporal  under  the  spiritual.  The 
spiritual  instituted  the  temporal,  and  judges  whether  that  power 
is  well  exercised.  We,  therefore,  assert,  define  and  pronounce 
that  it  is  necessary  to  salvation  to  believe  that  every  human  being 
it  subject  to  the  Pontiff  of  Rome."  Thus  on  the  very  eve  of  the 
Reformation  we  encounter  the  most  extreme  of  all  assertions  of 
the  supremacy  of  the  papacy  over  the  whole  world  reaffirmed, 
and  by  the  most  luxurious  and  worldly  of  all  the  popes,  who  was 
himself  to  be  a  witness  of  the  rending  asunder  of  western  Chris- 
tendom, the  inauguration  of  the  modern  era  in  the  history  of 
mankind,  and  the  overthrow  of  a  power  that  had  continued  for 
more  than  a  thousand  years.  For  the  first  time  in  hundreds  of 
years  men  were  aroused  in  feeling  and  untrammeled  in  reasoning. 
The  cup  of  indignation  was  more  than  full.  If  Europe  was  to 
remain  Christian,  the  Reformation  must  come. 

That  the  Reformation  was  urgently  called  for  is  evident  in 
the  deplorable  and  astonishing  ignorance  of  the  clergy  even  so 
late  as  the  period  of  Luther's  death.  In  England,  for  example,  a 
royal  visitation  had  been  instituted,  extending  over  a  series  of 
years  beginning  in  1547,  the  year  of  the  accession  of  Edward  VI. 
A  report  of  a  visitation  under  the  direction  of  Bishop  Hooper,  in 
the  diocese  of  Gloucester  in  1551,  has  been  published  along  with 
comments.  One  of  the  purposes  contemplated  in  this  visitation 
was  to  find  out  the  qualifications  or  disqualifications,  as  it  proved 
to  be,  for  the  important  function  of  preaching.  The  illiteracy 
exhibited  in  this  report  was  of  this  order:  "Three  hundred  and 
eleven  clergymen  were  examined,  and  of  these  one  hundred  and 
seventy-one  were  unable  to  repeat  the  Ten  Commandments, 
though,  strangely  enough,  all  but  thirty-four  could  tell  the  chapter 
in  which  they  were  to  be  found;  ten  were  unable  to  repeat  the 
Lord's  prayer ;  twenty-seven  could  not  tell  who  was  its  author ; 
and  thirty  could  not  tell  where  it  was  to  be  found. 

"The  report  deserves  study  as  a  description  of  the  condition  of 


76  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

the  clergy  of  the  Church  of  England  before  the  Reformation. 
These  clergymen  of  the  diocese  of  Gloucester  were  asked  nine 
questions — three  under  separate  heads:  1.  How  many  com- 
mandments are  there?  Where  are  they  to  be  found?  Repeat 
them.  2.  What  are  the  articles  of  the  Christian  Faith?  Re- 
peat them.  Prove  them  from  Scripture.  3.  Repeat  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  How  do  you  know  it  is  the  Lord's?  Where  is  it 
found  ?" 

That  the  equipment  for  the  work  of  preaching  was  ludicrously 
meager  is  evident  in  this  summary,  given  in  Lindsay's  Reforma- 
tion in  England: 

"Only  fifty  of  the  three  hundred  and  eleven  answered  all  these 
simple  questions,  and  of  the  fifty,  nineteen  are  noted  as  having 
answered  'mediocriter.'  Eight  clergymen  could  not  answer  any 
single  one  of  the  questions;  and  while  one  knew  that  the  number 
of  the  Commandments  was  ten,  he  knew  nothing  else.  Two 
clergymen,  when  asked  why  the  Lord's  Prayer  was  so  called, 
answered  that  it  was  because  Christ  had  given  it  to  His  disciples 
when  he  told  them  to  watch  and  pray ;  another  said  that  he  did 
not  know  why  it  was  called  the  Lord's  prayer,  but  that  he  was 
quite  willing  to  believe  that  it  was  the  Lord's  because  the  king 
had  said  so ;  and  another  answered  that  all  he  knew  about  it  was 
that  such  was  the  common  report.  Two  clergymen  said  that 
while  they  could  not  prove  the  articles  of  the  Creed  from  Scrip- 
ture, they  accepted  them  on  the  authority  of  the  king;  and  one 
said  that  he  could  not  tell  what  was  the  Scripture  authority  for 
the  Creed,  unless  it  was  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  but  that  it 
did  not  matter,  since  the  king  had  guaranteed  it  to  be  correct." 

"It  seemed,"  says  Dr.  Schaff,  in  writing  of  the  situation  con- 
fronting Christendom,  "as  if  Providence  allowed  the  papal  office 
at  the  close  of  the  medieval  age  to  be  filled  by  pontiffs  spiritually 
unworthy  and  morally  degenerate,  that  it  might  be  known  for  all 
time  that  it  was  not  through  the  papacy  the  Church  was  to  be  re- 
formed and  brought  out  of  its  medieval  formalism  and  scholasti- 
cism. What  popes  refused  to  attempt,  another  group  of  men 
Avith  no  distinction  of  office  accomplished." 

If,  then,  the  evils  of  the  Church  were  enormous — and  this  was 
admitted,  in  his  time  and  place,  by  each  of  the  Renaissance  popes 
— it  was  something  that  they  were  admitted,  and  that  their  re- 
moval had  even  been  suggested,  and  that  higher  ideals  of  life 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  77 

were  being  contemplated  and  held  up  to  the  expiring  Middle 
Ages.  Signs  of  danger  and  promise  were  strangely  mingled,  but 
the  official  leaders  of  the  Church  did  not  seem  to  be  able  to  dis- 
cern either.  The  period  of  the  papacy  immediately  preceding 
Luther,  the  instrument  of  the  Church's  deliverance,  came  to  an 
end  in  the  tawdry  luxuriance  and  unscrupulous  measure  of  Leo 
X,  a  man  to  whom  the  objections  and  arguments  of  the  refomer 
sounded  like  the  accents  of  an  unknown  tongue.  To  such  a  man 
Luther's  attack  upon  the  indulgence  traffic  of  Tetzel  was  of  im- 
portance only  in  so  far  as  it  imperiled  one  of  his  sources  of 
revenue.  Of  the  spiritual  significance  of  that  attack  he  could 
have  no  understanding  whatever. 

Had  the  demoralization  calling  so  urgently  fo"  ~eform  been 
but  half  as  bad  as  it  actually  was,  the  sequel  mignt  have  been 
entirely  different.  Had  there  been  no  Luther  there  had  been  no 
reform,  but  Luther  was  demanded  by  the  situation,  and,  in  some 
sense,  made  by  the  conditions  he  confronted.  Half-grown  evils 
do  not  compel  revolutions.  They  create,  not  men  like  Luther, 
but  men  like  Erasmus,  whose  principle  respecting  the  evils  of  his 
times  was  this :  "Evils  which  men  cannot  remedy,  they  must 
look  at  through  their  fingers."  To  compel  the  growth  of  thor- 
oughbred reformers,  error  must  have  time  to  come  to  a  head. 
Evil  must  declare  itself  by  acting  out  its  real  character  and  to  the 
full  before  it  dies.  Tetzel  was  only  the  exponent  of  the  full- 
grown  abuses  of  the  medieval  penitential  system.  Froude  called 
him  a  "spiritual  hawker,"  whose  business  it  was  to  "sell  passports 
to  the  easiest  places  in  purgatory."  His  methods  were  so  inso- 
lent to  the  common  sense,  and  so  offensive  to  the  indignant 
consciences  of  good  men,  that  the  Reformation,  the  restatement 
of  the  old  faith  of  the  gospel,  came  somewhat  in  the  form  of  a 
stupendous  reaction  against  those  impulses  and  impostures  which 
gave  the  world,  and  tolerated  in  the  Church,  men  like  Alexander 
VI,  Julius  II  and  Leo  X. 

The  literature  of  a  period  not  only  serves  to  indicate  the 
type  of  the  literary  expression  that  maintained  at  a  particular 
time,  but  is  also  a  reflection  of  the  spirit  of  that  particular  period. 
The  literature  of  the  later  Middle  Ages,  which  grew  out  of  the 
opening  intelligence  of  Europe  at  that  time,  is  full  of  interest  as 
one  of  the  adjuncts  that  served  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  Refor- 
mation of  the  sixteenth  century.     In  the  judgment  of  Hallam, 


78  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

"the  greater  part  of  the  literature  of  the  Middle  Ages,  at  least 
from  the  twelfth  century,  may  be  regarded  as  artillery  being 
leveled  against  the  clergy."  Much  of  it  was  taken  up  with  satiri- 
cal and  other  forms  of  literary  bombardment  of  the  avarice,  in- 
consistencies and  moral  degeneracy  of  the  papacy  in  its  head  and 
members.  In  April,  1520,  there  appeared  Ulrich  Von  Hutten's 
scathing  pamphlet  entitled  Vadiscus.  It  clearly  shows  the  di- 
rection which  German  interest  was  taking.  It  says  in  a  dialogue 
with  epigrammatic  triplets  against  the  Roman  court :  "Three 
things  keep  Rome  in  power :  The  authority  of  the  pope,  the 
bones  of  the  saints  and  the  traffic  in  indulgences.  Three  things 
are  banished  from  Rome :  Simplicity,  temperance  and  piety. 
Three  things  the  Romans  trade  in :  Christ,  ecclesiastical  bene- 
fices and  women.  Three  things  are  disliked  in  Rome :  A  Gen- 
eral Council,  a  reformation  of  the  clergy  and  the  fact  that  the 
Germans  are  beginning  to  open  their  eyes.  Three  things  pil- 
grims usually  bring  back  from  Rome :  Soiled  conscience,  a  sick 
stomach  and  an  empty  purse." 

In  England,  in  "Piers  the  Plowman,"  Langland  sets  forth  in  a 
series  of  visions  the  condition  of  the  State  and  the  Church,  in 
which  mild  reproof  and  humorous  satire  are  exchanged  for 
righteous  wrath,  and  fierce  invectives  are  hurled  at  a  corrupt 
Church  and  its  unworthy  priesthood.  The  friars  furnish  every 
impersonated  vice,  and  are  depicted  as  the  foes  of  every  virtue. 
The  cardinal  legate  is  represented  as  having  been  seen  in  Eng- 
land riding  in  his  pride  and  pomp,  with  lewdness,  rapacity, 
merciless  extortion  and  insolence  in  his  train. 

Geoffrey  Chaucer  did  not  have  the  temper  of  a  reformer,  but 
the  picture  of  the  worldly  and  corrupt  representatives  of  the 
papal  Church  which  Chaucer  draws  is  no  more  pleasing  and 
favorable  than  pictures  presented  by  his  contemporaries  in  Eng- 
land and  Germany. 

The  vivid  portrayals  given  us  in  the  "Canterbury  Tales"  of  the 
typical  churchman  of  the  day — the  pleasure-loving,  worldly 
monk,  the  easy-going  friar,  the  lying,  unscrupulous  pardoner — 
all  possess  satirical  bearing  which  it  is  impossible  to  ignore. 

"In  Rome,"  wrote  Hutten,  "you  may  live  from  robbery,  com- 
mit murder  and  sacrilege,  break  the  laws  as  you  will ;  your  talk 
may  be  shameful,  your  actions  criminal ;  you  may  revel  in  lust, 
and  deny  God  in  Heaven;  but  if  you  do  but  bring  money  to  Rome 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  .  79 

you  are  a  most  respectable  person.  Virtue  and  heavenly  blessings 
are  bought  and  sold  at  Rome.  You  may  even  buy  the  privilege 
of  sinning  in  the  future.  At  any  rate,  it  is  madness  to  be  virtu- 
ous ;  sensible  people  will  be  wicked." 

In  Italy,  Petrarch  invoked  fierce  maledictions  upon  the  proud 
and  voluptuous  papal  court.  Boccaccio  draws  a  frightful  pic- 
ture of  the  depravity  of  Italian  cloisters  and  of  the  papal  court, 
while  Dante,  chief  among  the  poets  of  his  country,  had  the 
courage  and  fidelity  to  medieval  teaching  to  consign  to  purgatory 
and  hell  such  popes  as  Nicholas  III,  Boniface  VIII  and  Gement 
V.  Similar  citations  from  the  literary  productions  of  the  time 
might  be  adduced  almost  indefinitely,  indicating  the  great  popular 
unrest,  and  presenting  the  religious  condition  of  their  age  as  the 
writers  saw  it  and  portrayed  it  in  their  indignant  protests  and 
satire  directed  at  the  cupidity,  inconsistency,  fraud  and  licentious- 
ness of  the  degenerate  Church  and  its  official  classes. 

IX 

That  which  Europe  needed  at  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
desired  in  its  inmost  heart,  was  not  a  Renaissance,  a  revival  of 
intellectual  activity,  but  a  deep  and  fundamental  reformation  in 
the  sphere  of  religion.  The  existing  conditions  called  not  so 
much  for  a  regeneration  of  art  and  learning,  as  for  the  regenera- 
tion of  the  Church  in  its  alleged  head  and  all  of  its  members. 
What  was  of  the  greatest  urgency  was  not  the  proclamation  of 
the  tidings  that  the  ancient  world,  with  its  treasures,  had  been  re- 
discovered and  made  accessible  to  the  appreciation  and  estimates 
of  mankind,  but  the  real  Glad  Tidings  preached  to  the  poor,  and 
which,  with  its  mighty  transformations,  could  bring  blessings  to 
the  world  lying  in  wickedness  and  sin,  and  effect  the  real  ref- 
ormation of  Church  and  Society.  To  the  credit  of  the  men  who 
then  lived,  be  it  said,  they  were  not  unaware  of  the  real  source  of 
the  evils  that  afflicted  the  land.  In  the  degeneracy  of  the  Church 
and  the  evils  that  had  fastened  themselves  upon  its  head  and 
members,  the  men  of  that  day  recognized,  with  increasing  cer- 
tainty, the  cause  of  the  widespread  corruption.  The  Church, 
they  perceived,  had  become  merged  in  the  world.  The  salt  had 
lost  its  savor,  and  the  fair  garments  in  which  the  Church  had  at 
first  been  arrayed,  had  been  bedraggled  in  the  mire  by  the  very 


80  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

men  who  were  supposed  to  be  the  conservators  of  their  white- 
ness. The  vessels  of  faith  had  been  tarnished  by  their  own  ac- 
credited custodians,  by  the  men  who  were  expected  to  be  the 
heralds  of  divine  truth  and  examples  to  the  flock  of  Christ. 

The  decay  of  the  Church  was  the  dominating  evil  of  the  times, 
and  this  was  felt  wherever  the  longing  after  a  better  and  restored 
spiritual  life  was  deepest  and  most  widespread.  The  cry  for 
reformation,  not  merely  of  the  intellectual  and  aesthetic  aspect  of 
life,  not  simply  for  a  renewal  of  an  interest  in  art  and  learning, 
went  up  from  the  land.  The  hope  for  the  coming  time  lay  in  the 
demand  for  what  was  of  more  fundamental  importance — the  re- 
newal of  the  Church  in  head  and  members.  The  splendid  plans 
of  conciliar  reformation  of  the  morals  and  administrations  of 
the  Church  instituted  at  Pisa,  Constance  and  Basel  had  all  mis- 
carried, and  the  hurt  of  the  people  went  unhealed.  It  was  all  a 
hopeless  expenditure  in  plans,  money  and  labor,  and  dealt  only 
with  the  outworks  of  the  apostate  Church.  The  Renaissance 
very  soon  became,  in  part  at  least,  an  adjunct  of  the  movement 
for  reform,  but  the  revival  of  interest  in  art  and  learning,  both  of 
which  had  long  been  in  exile,  very  soon  proved  its  inadequacy 
as  a  regenerative  force. 

The  Italian  society  of  the  second  half  of  the  fifteenth  century 
was  brilliant  in  its  culture,  full  of  aesthetic  interests,  and  rich  in 
natural  talents,  but  in  its  real  life  it  was  immoral,  corrupt  and 
full  of  animalism.  What  the  Church  in  Italy  needed  was  not  art 
or  quickened  intellectual  life,  or  new  methods  of  administration, 
so  much  as  new  men. 

In  the  forefront  of  the  movement  for  reform  stood  Germany, 
whose  people  had  a  depth  and  sincerity  surpassing  those  of  the 
peoples  in  the  south  of  Europe.  There  spiritual  interests  had 
been  kept  more  to  the  front.  Those  great  desires  which  can  only 
find  satisfaction  in  the  gospel  had  a  basis  deep  in  the  heart  of  that 
people.  There,  more  than  elsewhere  in  Europe,  people  were 
longing  after  the  certainty  of  salvation.  As  Hegel  has  set  forth, 
while  other  maritime  nations  were  going  out  to  America  and  the 
Indies  in  quest  of  riches  and  the  dominion  of  lands,  Luther  was 
opening  up  new  realms  of  thought  and  life  among  a  serious- 
minded  people.  Among  this  people  were  heroic  men  who  made 
the  revived  classical  learning  the  assistant  of  Christian  revelation. 
In  the  Renaissance  there  were  helps  to  the  acquisition  of  the 


THE  NEEDED  REFORMATION  81 

truth  of  the  Scriptures,  but  that  Word  itself,  in  the  hands  of 
Luther,  became  the  primary  means  of  restoring  the  Church. 
That  was  back  of  the  theses  which  inaugurated  this  most  vitaliz- 
ing movement  in  modern  Christianity  and  civilization. 

The  fifteenth  century  had  attempted  a  reformation  of  the 
Church  by  experiments  with  its  constitution,  by  laying  down  new 
rules  for  the  discipline  of  clergy  and  laity,  but  it  was  all  in  vain. 
When,  however,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  Luther  attacked  the 
doctrines  of  the  Church,  showed  its  departure  from  the  faith 
once  for  all  delivered  unto  the  saints,  he  touched,  without  fully 
being  aware  of  it,  the  single  point  from  which  the  renovation 
must  proceed,  and  from  which  the  whole  being  and  life  of  the 
Church  could  be  restored  and  transformed.  Then  the  long- 
wished  for  and  fervently-desired  Reformation  was  at  hand,  and 
the  modern  era  in  the  history  of  mankind  had  begun. 

The  old  Church  on  the  eve  of  the  Reformation  had  come  upon 
days  of  such  awful  moral  degradation  that  it  was  utterly  unfit  to 
contend  against  the  forces  of  decay,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
reform  on  the  other. 


SECTION  II 
THE  CHIEF  PERSONAL  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT 

The  man  who  is  right  with  himself  and  with  his  God,  in  his 
deepest  and  most  secret  life,  is  the  man  who  possesses  that  pe- 
culiar creative  moral  power  which  is  always  at  the  basis  of  great 
revolutions  and  reconstructions  in  the  spheres  of  religion  and  civ- 
ilization. When  new  reforms  are  pressed  on  the  public  convic- 
tion by  overpowering  necessity  and  constraining  justice,  com- 
mending themselves  to  the  deepest  conscience  and  the  most  cor- 
rect judgment,  the  vast  majority  of  those  who  recognize  the 
righteousness  of  those  reforms  are  slow  to  espouse,  champion 
and  defend  them.  In  a  period  in  which  such  reforms  are  ur- 
gently needed  most  men  promptly  inquire  what  other  men  think, 
what  the  journals  of  the  days  are  saying,  and  what  personal  ad- 
vantages are  likely  to  ensue.  But  surely  self-assertion,  within 
proper  limitations  and  in  the  proper  spirit,  is  needful,  not  only  as 
an  expression  of  all  high  character,  but  an  essential  in  the  for- 
ward movements  of  mankind.  That  righteous  self-assertion, 
even  under  adverse  conditions  and  in  perilous  times,  has  always 
been  a  distinctive  mark  of  the  great  captains  and  leaders.  Noth- 
ing more  certainly  reduces  the  grandeur  of  human  life,  and 
paralyzes  the  forces  that  make  of  men  the  great  champions  of 
faith  and  righteousness  in  the  earth,  than  that  inert  kind  of 
gregariousness  which  makes  a  man  to  be  content  in  being  and 
doing  like  every  one  else  at  the  critical  eras  in  human  history. 
The  stalwart  leaders  of  their  day  and  generation  who  have  been 
instrumental  in  starting  peoples  along  new  paths  of  progress  have 
never  denied  themselves  and  limited  their  influence  by  shrinking 
into  the  crowd  and  losing  their  identity.  Next  to  the  rejection  of 
God  and  His  truth,  this  is  the  way  to  the  suicide  of  high  character 
and  to  diminishing  influence. 

When  Emerson  looked  upon  a  great  city,  it  is  said  that  in 
his  estimate,  it  stood  for  something  more  than  streets  and  ware- 
houses, crowds  and  external  splendors.  To  him  it  stood  most  of 
all  for  the  few  noteworthy  men  who  dwelt  in  the  big  town,  and 
when  he  had  seen  them  he  had  exhausted  his  interest  in  the  place. 

82 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  83 

That  which  makes  men  distinguished  and  eminently  useful  in 
the  world  is  their  capacity  and  willingness  to  project  themselves 
trustfully  and  courageously  into  the  lives  of  other  men — the 
willingness  to  stand  alone  with  the  truth  in  spite  of  the  clamor  of 
majorities  and  the  threats  of  the  officially  and  commercially  great 
and  powerful.  Such  men  are  not  content  to  allow  the  secondary 
and  the  partial  to  swerve  them  from  the  supreme  and  the  eternal 
verities ;  they  will  not  let  the  mandates  of  princes  or  emperors  or 
potentates  in  either  Church  or  State  outweigh  God's  solemn  voice 
and  subordinate  the  higher  utilities  of  life.  In  consequence  of 
such  considerations  there  is  an  undying  interest  in  striking  and 
powerful  historical  characters,  an  interest  which  pervades  the 
most  widely  differing  schools  of  sentiment  and  doctrine.  It  is 
this  peculiar  interest  that,  in  an  unusual  degree,  attaches  to  the 
name  of  Luther,  the  dominating  personal  factor  in  the  Reforma- 
tion movement  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  which  is  always  in- 
separable from  his  name. 

I 

The  name  of  this  distinguished  Teutonic  chieftain  and  leader 
of  his  people  in  the  revolt  and  work  of  religious  reconstruction 
which  mark  the  termination  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  frontier 
of  the  new  age,  looms  larger  and  larger  as  the  years  go  by. 
More  and  more  the  place  assigned  him  by  the  wisest,  but  most 
widely  differing  interpreters  of  the  persons  and  factors  that  have 
entered  into  the  making  of  human  history,  is  that  of  leader  and 
chieftain.  More  and  more  is  he  rightfully  assigned  the  first 
place  among  the  recognized  leaders  of  the  modern  era,  the  right 
and  proper  place  in  harmony  with  the  fitness  of  things.  The 
memory  of  the  assertion  of  great  and  fundamentally  important 
principles  and  of  great  achievements  is  constantly  linked  with  his 
name.  The  men  who  know  best  how  to  estimate  the  forces 
which  have  made  great  civilizations  and  given  permanence  to 
great  religious  movements  constantly  accord  him  the  primacy. 
Far  beyond  the  circle  of  scholars  and  theologians,  far  beyond  the 
limits  of  all  ecclesiastical  organizations,  this  great  leader  and 
constructive  force  touches  life  at  many  points,  and  his  name  con 
tinues  to  avail  in  kindling  great  enthusiasms  and  mighty  move- 
ments. In  consequence  of  the  simple  transaction  of  nailing  cer- 
tain propositions  upon  the  church  door  at  Wittenberg  in  Ger- 


84  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

many,  which,  according  to  the  academic  methods  of  his  time,  he 
prosposed  to  discuss,  coupled  with  that  remarkable  courage  with 
which  he  followed  that  transaction  up  to  its  logical  consequences, 
the  civilization  of  modern  times  and  their  civil  and  religious  free- 
dom were  rendered  possible.  Through  that  simple  act  as  a  be- 
ginning and  what  ensued,  he  was  instrumental  in  God's  hands  in 
bringing  untold  blessings  to  men  in  all  succeeding  ages.  Since  the 
end  of  the  great  career  of  St.  Paul  the  footprints  of  no  man  have 
left  so  deep  an  impression  upon  the  sands  of  time.  The  chief 
among  the  reformers  was  not  ambitious  of  distinction.  He  an- 
ticipated none  of  that  greatness  which  men  have  been  constantly 
prone  to  attach  to  his  name,  and  were  he  here  today,  at  the  end 
of  four  hundred  years,  he  would  no  doubt  be  surprised  more  than 
others  at  the  posthumous  renown  that  has  come  to  be  his  and  at 
the  constant  testimony  which  is  borne  to  his  greatness. 

The  more  this  man  is  studied  the  more  do  his  vigor,  earnest- 
ness, courage,  decision  of  character,  sincere  and  hearty  piety 
challenge  our  admiration.  Among  those  who  have  come  to  in- 
terpret him  without  prejudice  he  has  always  been  loved  and  hon- 
ored, while  he  has  been  hated  by  the  enemies  of  light  and  feared 
by  the  trimmer  and  time-server.  He  was,  so  far  as  men  can  dis- 
cern, always  ready  not  only  to  contend  for  the  truth  but  to  lay 
down  his  life  for  the  cause  of  his  Lord  and  Master,  in  the  in- 
terpretation of  whose  person  and  work  he  always  discerned  the 
ground  of  human  redemption  and  the  basis  of  true  civilization. 
In  him  we  are  constantly  encountering  a  life  that  is  always  bat- 
tling its  way  and  overcoming  opposing  forces,  while  at  the  same 
time  we  are  led  into  the  study  of  one  who  in  his  own  rich  and 
varied  experience  passed  through  the  purifying  fires  of  tempta- 
tion and  the  struggles  of  a  soul  greater  than  those  of  any  other 
man  in  the  sphere  of  religion  since  St.  Paul  and  Augustine.  In 
him  we  are  constantly  confronting  a  character  that  reflects  in  an 
extraordinary  degree  the  conflict,  strength  and  victory  of  human 
nature  under  the  influences  of  divine  grace.  In  him  we  are  con- 
tinually coming  in  contact  with  the  tragic  and  the  humorous,  the 
childlike  in  combination  with  the  imposing  massiveness  of  the 
great  and  mighty.  Rough  and  turbulent  at  times,  in  a  rough  and 
turbulent  age,  there  was  also  a  charming  gentleness  in  his  char- 
acter, and  we  can  adopt  Carlyle's  well-known  characterization  of 
him :      "Unsubduable   granite,   piercing    far   and   wide    into    the 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  85 

heavens,  yet  in  the  clefts  of  its  fountains,  green,  beautiful  valleys 
with  flowers." 

Hallam  attributes  to  Machiavelli  the  profound  suggestion  that 
states  are  formed  or  reformed  by  the  influence  of  one  man,  a 
suggestion  which  finds  illustrious  verification  in  the  case  of 
Luther.  Not  only  was  he,  as  has  been  said,  the  father  of  the 
German  language ;  he  was  the  incarnation  of  German  genius,  the 
mighty  intellectual  and  moral  power  that  shaped  the  destiny  of 
the  German  people.  The  world  now  rejects  with  scorn  the  proud 
and  arrogant  boast  of  the  pompous  Louis  XIV,  who  affirmed  that 
"he  was  the  State,"  but  in  all  places  where  the  judgment  is  the 
most  enlightened  it  grants  that  in  the  brain  and  heart  and  conscience 
of  an  humble  Augustinian  brother  there  was  hidden,  not  only  the 
splendid  future  of  his  own  country,  but  also  the  future  of  much 
of  that  individual  religious  liberty,  that  independence  of  thought, 
and  those  restless  struggles  of  conscience  out  of  which  have 
grown  the  most  significant  and  splendid  achievements  in  every 
land  of  Christendom.  To  him,  in  modern  days,  our  thoughts  go 
back,  and  from  him  forward,  for  unto  him,  as  the  pivotal  point  of 
personal  influence,  is  attributed  the  turning  place  in  the  Church's 
history.  What  follows  after  has  been  set  down,  much  of  it,  to 
his  credit;  and  what  went  before  is  now  compared  and  judged  by 
the  standard  of  that  which  he  reaffirmed  and  led  to  a  successful 
issue  in  the  stormy  times  of  the  century  in  which  he  did  his  work 
and  ended  his  earthly  career.  In  consequence  of  his  command- 
ing personality,  his  Christian  courage,  his  faith  and  magnetic 
words,  a  quickening  breath  went  through  the  Europe  of  his  day, 
in  all  parts  of  which  there  soon  began  to  prevail  a  secret  convic- 
tion that  the  world  was  about  to  witness,  not  the  establishment  of 
a  new  sect,  but  a  new  spiritual  birth  of  the  Church  and  a  wide- 
spread reconstruction  of  society.  Thousands  of  men,  born  of  the 
new  spirit,  rallied  round  this  chieftain,  who  was  the  man  for  the 
crisis,  and  the  gladly-recognized  leader,  who  was  the  instrument 
under  God  in  this  widespread  revival. 

It  was  the  conjunction  of  the  hour  and  the  man  which  made  the 
new  era  in  which  to  one  brave  heart  was  assigned  the  mighty  task 
of  checking  the  ravages  of  sin  and  darkness  and  to  start  the  mul- 
titude, kings  and  subjects  and  all  peoples,  along  a  nobler  and  up- 
ward path.  Had  not  something  come  to  purify  the  heart  and 
enlighten  the  mind  in  Luther's  day,  the  world  would  have  re- 


86  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

lapsed  into  barbarism.  Accordingly,  the  transformation  of  so- 
ciety and  civilization  associated  always  with  his  name  and  leader- 
ship was  the  first  and  most  far-reaching  in  its  effects  of  all  those 
which  have  been  conspicuous  in  the  course  of  modern  history. 

At  the  particular  junction  of  events  in  Germany  at  which  he 
came,  his  capacity  for  anger  and  assault,  coupled  with  positive 
reaffirmations  of  the  truths  of  the  Gospel,  was  something  the 
world  needed.  The  times  demanded  the  internal  honesty,  and 
the  utter  fearlessness,  and  hot  temper,  of  the  reformer  no  longer 
content  to  mildly  contemplate  the  abuses  of  the  times.  The 
mighty  work  to  be  done  waited  for  a  Hercules  of  Christian  mold 
and  convictions,  a  strong  son  of  power  whose  words,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  common  people,  should  sound  like  martial  music  in 
times  of  conflict,  to  summon  them  to  a  new  appraisement  of  the 
gospel  of  grace  and  a  new  estimate  of  their  own  place  and  power 
and  prerogatives.  The  world  was  waiting  for  a  witness  of  re- 
ligious thinking,  experience  and  freedom,  some  one  big  enough 
and  comprehensive  enough  to  actualize  the  best  thought  of  his  age 
on  these  lines  in  conjunction  with  a  renewed  sense  of  that  joyous 
trust  in  God  which  overcomes  the  world.  The  necessities  of  the 
situation  in  Church  and  State  called  for  a  man  who  could  rally 
the  dissenting  forces  in  a  revolt  against  a  Church  which  had  for- 
gotten the  precepts  of  its  Founder,  against  the  tyranny  of  a  tradi- 
tional scholasticism  and  the  arrogant  assumptions  of  a  priest 
caste,  and  lead  the  way  for  the  restoration  of  a  biblical  theology 
as  a  strictly  historical  science.  A  crisis  had  come  in  the  history 
of  Christianity  and  civilization  that  called  for  an  independent 
spirit  who  would  tolerate  no  outside  interference  and  who  was 
not  to  be  deterred  or  frustrated  by  the  mandates  from  thrones, 
councils  or  popes.  Happy  was  it  for  his  own  age  and  fortunate 
for  subsequent  ages  that,  in  that  day,  Germany  could  grow  one  of 
these  out  of  its  fertile  soil. 

Of  Luther,  who  came  to  his  mighty  task  in  the  fulness  of  time, 
and  who  at  once  became  the  greatest  personal  force  in  the  great 
movement  of  the  sixteenth  century  inseparably  associated  with 
his  name,  his  distinguished  Scotch  biographer,  the  late  Profes- 
sor Lindsay,  has  said  that  "history  knows  no  other  man  of  such 
kingly  power."  Of  him  also  the  distinguished  Baptist  scholar, 
Prof.  W.  C.  Wilkinson,  has  said,  "No  other  man  perhaps  ever 
lived,  who,  simply  by  what  he  was,  stamped  himself  so  indelibly 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  87 

as  did  Luther  upon  the  universal  imagination  of  the  human  race ; 
no  other  man  who,  by  his  own  single  force,  did  so  much  to  turn 
into  a  new  channel  the  main  current  of  human  history." 

Many  causes  had  been  at  work  preparing  the  way  for  the  far- 
reaching  Teutonic  revolt.  The  hour  was  at  hand,  and  in  Luther 
the  man  came  with  the  hour.  The  chief  of  the  reformers  had  an 
advantage  in  the  time  of  his  appearing.  The  Christian  world  of 
his  day  was  ripe  for  the  change  in  which  he  was  destined  to  lead. 
To  the  transformation  he  was  to  effect,  the  great  earlier  move- 
ments of  the  human  mind  and  society  had  contributed.  The  fail- 
ure of  the  reformatory  councils  held  in  the  preceding  century  at 
Pisa,  Constance  and  Basel  had  left  a  deep  impression  on  all 
sincere  souls  of  the  inadequacy  of  the  methods  of  reform  con- 
templated by  such  great  gatherings  of  the  medieval  Church. 
Preachers,  the  founders  of  religious  orders,  the  councils,  all  in. 
turn  were  bewailing  the  evils  of  the  times  and  denouncing  the 
abounding  superstition  and  oppression  that  so  urgently  called  for 
a  change.  Inventions  like  that  of  gunpowder  and  of  the  mari- 
ner's compass  were  serving  to  break  up  the  old  civilization  and 
pointing  to  a  new  world  beyond  the  Atlantic.  The  invention  of 
printing  was  making  knowledge  available  among  all  classes  of 
men.  The  study  of  Greek  literature  was  creating  disgust  with 
the  barbarous  anachronisms  of  the  scholastic  theology  and  displac- 
ing a  method  of  culture  that  was  peculiar  to  the  Middle  Ages. 
Commerce  and  discovery  were  liberalizing  the  minds  of  the  com- 
mercial classes  and  making  them  restless  under  the  priestly  yoke 
imposed  upon  them.  The  growth  of  the  national  spirit  was  incit- 
ing men  to  revolt  against  the  unscriptural,  autocratic  and  much- 
abused  papal  claim  of  political  supremacy.  Literary  and 
scientific  movements  of  the  day  were  enlarging  the  area  and  mul- 
tiplying the  subjects  of  thought  and  investigation.  The  fall  of 
feudalism  and  of  the  aristocratic  form  of  government  made  it 
necessary  to  reckon  with  the  people,  who  were  far  from  being 
satisfied  with  their  position  and  prospects. 

There  had  been  during  the  age  that  was  now  closing  repeated 
isolated  assertions  of  the  spirit  of  democracy,  and  in  the  con- 
flicts between  the  crown  and  the  people  against  the  nobles,  the 
latter  were  losing  their  prestige.  They  looked  jealously  upon  the 
rising  movement  toward  concentration  of  power  in  the  hands  of 
the  princes,  seeing  themselves  thrust  aside  without  voice  in  the 


88  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

Diet,  and  gradually,  but  surely,  declining  from  the  importance 
which  they  had  enjoyed  under  the  old  feudal  system.  The  peas- 
ants, who  were  the  subjects  of  grievous  oppression,  were  quite  as 
much  dissatisfied  as  the  nobles,  and  with  much  better  reason. 

In  addition  to  the  more  secular  movements  which  were  tending 
to  radical  change  must  be  reckoned  those  more  profound  and 
vital  forces  which  rule  the  religious  nature  of  man.  To  political 
restlessness  there  must  be  added  the  stimulus  of  that  great  re- 
ligious agitation  which  had  been  started  in  Germany.  There  was 
a  rising  tide  of  resentment  against  Rome  and  the  hierarchy,  and 
a  widespread  preparation  among  receptive  and  inquiring  minds 
for  the  teachings  of  the  reformer.  The  old  order  was  passing 
and  the  new  was  at  hand.  The  latter  half  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury may  be  regarded  as  the  eve  before  the  day  of  modern  Chris- 
tianity, that  new  day  of  which  the  Reformation  epoch  is  the 
dawn.  The  records  of  that  fifty  years  have  an  important  bearing 
both  on  the  great  ecclesiastical  event  which  was  then  impending 
and  on  the  condition  of  modern  Christendom. 

To  his  work  the  son  of  a  poor  miner  came,  to  stamp  his  tre- 
mendous personality  on  an  entire  age,  when  the  discovery  of 
America  was  opening  up  new  avenues  of  adventure,  colonization 
and  trade;  when  the  printing  press  was  giving  knowledge  wider 
currency,  thought  a  vaster  range,  and  opening  up  for  the  Church 
of  modern  times  her  pathway  of  power ;  when  the  revival  of  let- 
ters brought  the  stores  of  the  ancient  Greek  and  Roman  literature 
before  the  schools  of  all  Christendom ;  when  the  quickening  im- 
pulse of  the  intellectual  awakening  of  the  Renaissance  in  Ger- 
many was  forming  its  alliance  with  religion ;  when  the  papacy, 
under  Innocent  III,  had  reached  the  height  of  its  grandeur  and 
sway,  and,  under  the  disastrous  reign  of  Boniface  VIII,  of 
whom  it  was  said  that  "He  came  in  like  a  fox,  ruled  like  a  lion 
and  died  like  a  dog,"  passed  into  the  period  of  its  decline ;  when 
Spain,  under  the  control  of  Charles  V,  was,  in  arms  and  political 
power  and  wealth  of  resources,  the  leading  nation  on  the  earth, 
powerfully  effecting  the  policy  of  the,  at  that  time,  distinct  king- 
doms of  England  and  Scotland  as  a  consequence  of  martial  and 
other  alliances ;  when  there  were  heart  longings  in  the  homes  of 
the  German  fatherland  that  neither  art  nor  literature,  nor  the 
medieval  Church  with  its  grand  cathedrals,  its  splendid  ritual 
and  its  impressive  celebration  of  the  mass,  could  satisfy. 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  89 

The  times  demanded  a  man  of  deep  spiritual  experience  and 
intense  moral  earnestness,  who  loved  the  truth  and  who  sought 
liberty  to  believe  and  teach  the  truth.  There  was  a  call  for  some- 
one who  was  large  enough  to  gather  up  all  the  forces  and  inter- 
ests which  we  observed  to  be  awakening — national,  democratic, 
humanistic,  mystical,  pious  and  reformatory — and  bring  them  to 
bear  among  princes  and  scholars,  citizens  and  peasants,  in  achiev- 
ing the  mighty  work  that  was  waiting  to  be  done.  There  was 
needed  a  great  religious  leader  who  could  capture  men  by  the 
manifest  reality  there  was  in  him;  a  man  with  overwhelming  re- 
ligious convictions,  who  was  able  and  courageous  enough  to  com- 
municate them  to  others,  and  who  had  a  whole  cause  to  cham- 
pion and  more  than  half  a  world  to  challenge  and  defeat.  The 
times  called  for  one  who  was  able  to  overcome  odds  against  him 
that  were  enonnous ;  a  man  who  was  qualified  for  a  crisis  in  the 
general  progress  of  society  in  its  troubled  passage  from  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  to  modern  civilization. 

For  such  times  and  conditions  Luther  was  amply  qualified  by 
nature,  grace  and  training.  Rich  in  his  endowments,  many  sided 
in  his  nature  and  attainments,  frank  and  popular  in  the  commun- 
ication of  his  experiences,  poet,  musician,  preacher  of  popular 
gifts,  theologian  and  commentator  of  rare  insight  into  the  truth, 
the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  is  identical,  for  the  most 
part,  with  his  history.  He  was  the  primate  among  reformers, 
the  greatest  single  personal  factor  in  the  history  of  the  modern 
era  in  which  we  are  living. 

He  came  into  exciting  times  for  the  man  who  dared  to  throw 
down  the  gauntlet  against  imperial  power  and  pontifical  assump- 
tion. It  is  interesting  to  recall  here  the  report  of  a  dream  of 
the  Elector  Frederick  of  Saxony,  which  he  dreamed  while  sleep- 
ing in  his  palace,  six  miles  from  Wittenberg,  only  a  night  or  two 
before  the  nailing  up  of  the  theses  on  the  door  of  the  Castle 
Church.  This  dream  was  told  by  Frederick  the  next  morning. 
"I  dreamed,"  so  runs  the  report,  "that  the  Almighty  sent  me  a 
monk  who  was  a  true  son  of  Paul  the  Apostle.  He  was  accom- 
panied by  all  the  saints,  in  obedience  to  God's  command,  to  bear 
him  testimony,  and  to  assure  me  that  he  did  not  come  with 
any  fraudulent  design,  but  that  all  he  should  do  was  conformable 
to  the  will  of  God.  They  asked  my  gracious  permission  to  let 
him  write  something  upon  the  doors  of  the  palace  chapel  at  Wit- 


90  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

tcnberg,  which  I  conceded  through  my  chancellor.  Upon  this  the 
monk  repaired  thither  and  began  to  write.  So  large  were  the 
characters  that  I  could  read  from  my  palace,  six  miles  distant, 
what  he  was  writing.  The  pen  he  used  was  so  long  that  its  ex- 
tremity reached  as  far  as  Rome,  where  it  pierced  the  ears  of  a 
lion  which  lay  there,  and  shook  the  triple  crown  on  the  pope's 
head."  -Certain  it  is  that  this  dream  of  Frederick  was  an  accurate 
forecast  of  the  events  which  came  in  rapid  order  after  the  nailing 
up  of  the  theses.  This  son  of  a  miner,  with  a  stout  heart  and  an 
open  Bible,  and  a  trust  in  God  and  His  word,  did  shake  the 
triple  crown  of  the  pope  and  the  foundations  of  the  old  medieval 
hierarchy,  foiled  the  craft  and  might  of  the  empire,  and  smote 
the  pontifical  See  with  blows  from  which  it  has  never,  even  to  this 
day,  recovered.  That  this  is  true  is  verified  even  by  Catholic 
writers  themselves.  In  one  of  the  encyclopedias  of  the  Church, 
and  published  with  ecclesiastical  sanction,  it  is  said :  "There  is 
not,  perhaps,  in  history,  a  guiltier  name  than  that  of  Martin  Lu- 
ther, the  patriarch  of  Protestantism.  For  fifteen  centuries  the 
Church  of  Christ  has  seen  many  heretics  assail  her,  many  rebel- 
lious children  turn  against  her;  but  never  a  sect,  never  a  heresy, 
never  a  persecution,  presented  traits  so  grave,  and  principles  so 
dangerous,  as  the  revolt  of  the  sixteenth  century  raised  and  dis- 
guised under  the  delusive  banner  of  Reform." 

In  the  use  of  the  figure  of  speech  based  upon  the  meaning  of 
his  name  in  the  Bohemian  language,  from  the  dungeon  in  which 
he  was  imprisoned,  and  just  before  he  was  burned  at  the  stake, 
on  July  6,  1415,  John  Huss  wrote  these  words:  "They  may  kill 
a  goose,  but  a  hundred  years  from  now  a  swan  will  arise  which 
they  will  not  be  able  to  kill." 

The  dream  of  Frederick  the  Wise,  the  violent  denunciation  of 
the  papal  encyclopedist  and  the  prophecy  of  the  forerunner,  John 
Huss,  were  all  fulfilled  when  Luther's  mighty  and  penetrating 
voice,  responding  to  God's  call  to  duty  as  it  came  to  him,  shook 
the  foundations  of  the  most  powerful  and  carefully  articulated  ec- 
clesiastico-political  system  that  the  world  had  ever  seen. 

II 

It  was  doubtless  a  divine  ordination  that  Luther  was  born  poor. 
His  origin  furthered  his  work.     "I  find  it  altogether  suitable  to 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  91 

Luther's  function  in  this  earth,  and  doubtless  wisely  ordered  to 
that  end  by  the  providence  presiding  over  him  and  us  and  all 
things,"  says  Carlyle,  "that  he  was  born  poor  and  brought  up 
poor,  one  of  the  poorest  of  men.  Hardship,  rigorous  necessity, 
was  the  poor  boy's  companion;  no  man  or  thing  would  put  on  a 
false  face  to  flatter  Martin  Luther.  Among  things,  and  not  the 
show  of  things,  had  he  to  grow  up.  It  was  his  task  to  get 
acquainted  with  realities  and  keep  acquainted  with  them  at  what- 
ever cost;  his  task  was  to  bring  the  whole  world  back  to  reality, 
for  it  had  dwelt  too  long  with  the  semblance  of  things." 

His  grandparents,  and  the  ancestors  before  them,  dwelt  in  the 
little  town  of  Moehra,  in  the  Thuringian  forest.  They  were 
sturdy,  honest,  hard-working  peasants,  marked  by  those  char- 
acteristics of  life  that  make  for  strength  of  character,  power  of 
will,  firmness  of  purpose  under  the  pressure  of  adverse  condi- 
tions. Of  his  origin  the  Reformer  was  never  ashamed,  but  spoke 
of  it  repeatedly  with  pride.  "I  am,"  said  he,  "a  peasant's  son; 
my  father,  grandfather  and  all  my  ancestors  were  farmers."  Of 
this  family  line  only  his  father  was  compelled  to  leave  the  ances- 
tral estate  and  take  up  a  trade.  He  removed  to  Mansfeld,  where 
there  were  rich  mines,  and  at  that  place,  devoting  himself  to  that 
industry,  his  forges  brought  him  but  scanty  profits.  Luther  thus 
repeated  much  of  the  world's  best  history  by  being  born,  cradled 
and  disciplined  in  poverty.  "The  wheels  of  youth  rest  or  rust  in 
riches,"  says  Carlyle,  in  further  estimate  of  the  Reformer's 
power;  "in  poverty  they  all  run.  Wealth  says,  how  shall  I  en- 
joy myself?  Poverty  says,  what  shall  I  perform?  Out  of 
the  former  come  those  who  play ;  out  of  the  latter  those  who 
work." 

Poverty  and  piety  seem  to  have  been  the  only  estate  of  Hans 
Luther  and  Margaret  Lindemann,  his  parents.  Some  wind  of 
fortune  brought  this  humble  pair  from  their  earlier  home  at 
Moehra  to  Eisleben,  where,  on  the  10th  of  November,  1483,  at  11 
o'clock  at  night,  their  first  child  was  born,  upon  whom  the  next 
day,  at  his  baptism,  they  bestowed  the  name  of  Martin.  "Strange 
enough  to  reflect  upon  it,"  says  Carlyle  again.  "In  all  the  world 
of  that  day  there  was  not  a  more  entirely  unimportant  looking 
pair  of  people  than  this  miner  and  his  wife.  And  yet  what  are  all 
emperors,  popes  and  potentates  in  comparison?  There  was  born 
here  a  mighty  man,  whose  light  was  to  flame  as  a  beacon  over 


92  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

long  centuries  and  epochs  of  the  world ;  the  whole  world  and  its 
history  was  waiting  for  this  man." 

The  pictures  of  these  people  which  have  come  down  to  us  pre- 
sent rugged  faces,  into  which  toil,  exposure  and  care  have  been 
traced  in  wrinkles  and  furrows  and  features,  which  were  made 
hard  by  incessant  application  to  hard  tasks.  The  home  training 
was  stern  even  to  the  extent  of  cruelty.  The  family  scepter  was 
a  birchen  rod,  which  was  mercilessly  wielded,  no  matter  how 
trivial  the  offence ;  and  any  intervals  of  exemption  at  home  were 
made  good  by  the  village  schoolmaster,  who  heartily  believed  in 
the  same  scepter  applied  in  the  field  of  pedagogy.  This  youth, 
who  was  destined  to  such  future  distinction  and  influence,  was 
once  roundly  beaten  with  a  stout  stick  until  the  blood  came,  when 
he  had  committed  the  heinous  crime  of  stealing  a  handful  of  nuts  ! 
Luther  did  not  look  back  with  approval,  but  with  sadness,  upon 
this  severity ;  but  it  did  not  abate  his  affection  for  his  parents,  for 
when  he  was  the  foremost  man  in  Germany,  he  said  of  them : 
"They  meant  it  all  for  my  best  good."  "But  they  did  not  know 
how  to  distinguish  the  dispositions  to  which  the  punishment  is  to 
be  adapted." 

But  associated  with  this  mistaken  parental  severity  was  a  readi- 
ness of  father  and  mother  to  take  upon  themselves  all  kinds  of 
hardships,  and  a  willingness  to  make  sacrifices  for  the  benefit  of 
the  children;  and  posterity  owes  an  immense  debt  of  gratitude  to 
the  hard-handed  peasant  father,  who  cared  enough  for  his  tal- 
ented boy  to  make  the  sacrifice  necessary  to  spare  him  from  his 
home  and  to  give  him  the  best  educational  advantages  of  his  day. 
Luther  was  the  son  of  a  poor  man,  but  a  man  of  enough  refine- 
ment and  appreciation  of  the  higher  utilities  of  life  to  give  his  son 
an  opportunity  at  a  time  when  fortune  had  but  few  darlings  and 
philanthropy  fewer  still. 

Every  man  who  has  permanently  influenced  the  Church  has 
been  characterized  by  three  factors :  Fine  native  gifts,  the  train- 
ing of  the  schools,  and  profound  personal  religious  convictions. 
Luther  had  them  all.  He  was  a  man  of  fully  disciplined  powers, 
having  been  educated  successively  at  Mansfeld,  Magdeburg, 
Eisenach  and  Erfurt.  In  1497,  when  he  was  fourteen,  with 
another  lad  from  Mansfeld  he  was  sent  to  Magdeburg,  in  order 
that  he  might  prepare  for  the  university.  After  being  here  for  a 
year  he  went  to  Eisenach,  where  he  secured  the  means  of  support, 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  93 

according  to  the  custom  of  the  times,  by  singing  at  the  doors  of 
the  houses  of  the  principal  citizens.  Here  it  was  that  Frau  Cotta, 
a  woman  of  wealth  and  refinement,  was  so  charmed  by  Martin's 
singing  that  she  became  his  much-needed  friend,  offering  him  a 
place  at  her  table  and  in  her  family.  In  1501,  being  then  in  his 
eighteenth  year,  he  was  sent  to  the  University  of  Erfurt,  one  of 
the  centers  of  humanistic  learning  in  northern  Europe,  and  the 
most  renowned  university  in  Germany.  Students  from  all  parts 
of  Europe  were  drawn  thither,  and  it  was  a  common  saying  that 
"whoever  wants  to  study  thoroughly  must  needs  go  to  Erfurt." 
Here  he  came  in  contact  with  the  advancing  learning  of  his  times 
and  was  captivated  by  it,  while  his  talents  from  the  first  com- 
manded the  attention  of  all  who  came  in  contact  with  him,  so  that 
he  soon  became  the  admiration  of  the  university.  It  was  in  the 
library  one  day  that  an  event  occurred  of  unusual  importance  to 
him  and  to  the  world.  Here  he  found  the  first  complete  copy  of 
the  Scriptures  he  had  ever  seen.  He  read,  and,  as  he  read,  his 
interest  in  the  divinely  inspired  volume  deepened.  He  had  found 
the  real  source  of  religious  truth,  which  for  him  had  been  hither- 
to unexplored.  Deeply  religious  from  his  boyhood,  religious 
problems  had  always  had  a  special  interest  for  young  Luther — 
problems  for  which  he  had  not  been  able  to  find  any  real  solu- 
tions in  the  teaching  of  the  Church.  Neither  mind  nor  heart  had 
found  rest.  But  this  Book  of  Books  satisfied  him,  and  into  its 
treasures  he  plunged  with  earnestness,  enthusiasm  and  reverence, 
being  fascinated  by  its  simplicity  and  religious  fervor.  In  his 
diligent  application  to  his  studies  he  went  from  science  to  science, 
mastering  each  with  a  thoroughness  and  rapidity  that  amazed  his 
teachers  and  fellow-students.  The  department  which  he  made 
his  specialty  was  that  of  philosophy.  In  1502  he  received  the  de- 
gree of  Bachelor  of  Philosophy,  and  in  1505  took  his  doctor's  de- 
gree, ranking  second  in  a  class  of  seventeen  candidates.  He  was 
now,  according  to  the  plans  of  his  father,  to  enter  upon  the  study 
of  law,  and,  in  view  of  his  fine  gifts  and  his  devotion  to  study,  his 
friends  were  predicting  for  him  a  splendid  career,  leading  on  to 
both  distinction  and  fortune. 

But  Providence  here  interposed.  The  Lord  of  the  Church  had 
other  work  for  Luther.  Suddenly,  to  the  surprise  of  his  friends, 
to  the  consternation  of  the  university,  much  to  the  grief  of  his 
father,  after  taking  his  master's  degree,  he  bade  the  world  fare- 


94  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

well,  and  on  July  17,  1505,  entered  the  Augustinian  cloister  as  a 
monk.  Here  he  subjected  himself  to  the  severe  discipline  of  the 
monastic  life,  denied  himself  all  comforts,  tortured  his  body  and 
fasted  and  prayed  to  a  degree  that  almost  proved  fatal  to  his  life. 
Differing,  however,  in  one  respect  from  most  of  his  monastic 
brethren,  he  held  on  to  his  much  loved  studies,  and  of  him  his 
fellows  by  and  by  came  to  say:  "If  this  brother  keeps  on  to  his 
studies  he  will  rule  us" — a  prophecy  that  was  literally  fulfilled. 
A  fact  worth  mention  in  connection  with  Luther's  entrance  into 
the  monastery  shows  in  itself  the  need  of  reformation  and  a  re- 
estimate  of  the  relative  importance  of  things.  When  he  went  to 
become  one  among  the  Augustinian  brethren  he  took  with  him 
just  two  books,  possibly  the  only  ones  that  he  possessed.  They 
were  not  the  gospels  and  epistles  of  the  New  Testament  contain- 
ing the  life  of  our  Lord  whom  he  was  seeking  to  serve,  and  the 
matchless  writings  of  St.  Paul,  or  the  lofty  strains  of  David  and 
Isaiah  and  Job.  This  finely  endowed,  well-trained  and  deeply 
religious  young  man  of  the  sixteenth  century  took  with  him  two 
books  of  heathen  authorship,  and  in  another  tongue  than  that  of 
his  people.  They  were  the  writings  of  Plautus  and  Virgil. 
Much  of  the  secret  of  the  Reformation  is  found  in  this  fact,  the 
ominous  fact,  that  Luther  had  grown  to  manhood,  and  in  the 
Church  of  his  day,  without  ever  having  seen  a  Bible,  the  one 
infallible  source  of  truth  and  salvation. 

In  1507  he  was  ordained  to  the  priesthood,  and  in  the  following 
year  was  made  a  professor  in  the  university  of  Wittenberg,  which 
had  been  founded  by  Frederick  of  Saxony  in  1502,  the  school 
always  destined  to  be  memorably  associated  with  the  Reformer's 
work  and  influence.  Here,  at  first,  he  lectured  on  dialectics  and 
physics,  but  his  heart  was  already  in  theology.  In  1509  he  be- 
came a  Bachelor  of  Theology,  and  immediately  began  lecturing 
on  the  Holy  Scriptures.  He  quickly  gained  a  reputation  as  a 
lecturer,  and  at  once  deeply  impressed  his  students.  His  teach- 
ing was  practical  and  personal,  and  he  was  equally  forcible  in  the 
pulpit  and  the  lecture-room.  While  at  Erfurt  he  had  attained 
to  some  knowledge  of  the  Bible,  and  had  seen  something  of  the 
difference  between  the  simplicity  of  the  gospel  and  the  life  and 
practice  of  the  Church.  In  the  university  and  in  the  pulpit  of  the 
parochial  church  Luther  found  a  field,  the  first  in  his  life,  for  the 
use  of  his  remarkable  powers.     Hfe  lectures  produced  a  powerful 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  95 

impression  by  the  novelty  of  his  views,  the  freshness  of  that 
which  was  scriptural,  and  the  boldness  of  his  advocacy  of  what  he 
was  coming  step  by  step  to  believe.  "This  monk,"  by  and  by 
remarked  the  rector  of  the  university,  "will  puzzle  all  our  doctors, 
and  bring  in  a  new  doctrine,  and  reform  the  whole  Roman 
Church,  for  he  takes  his  stand  on  the  writings  of  the  apostles  and 
prophets,  and  on  the  word  of  Jesus  Christ.''  On  so  much  of 
truly  Protestant  ground  he  had  already  planted  himself.  Grad- 
ually he  was  led  by  his  biblical  studies  to  see  the  full  light  of  the 
gospel  of  grace.  The  books  which  he  read  and  studied  most  of 
all  were  the  Psalms  and  the  Epistles  to  the  Romans  and  Gala- 
tians.  He  had  come  through  his  study  of  these  Scriptures  to  see 
that  the  righteousness  of  God  is  not  merely  an  attribute  of  the 
great  Judge  of  all  the  earth,  but  that  God  in  His  compassion 
freely  gives  His  righteousness  to  the  believer,  and  along  with  this 
gift  bestows,  also,  full  salvation  and  life  eternal.  Having 
grasped  this  great  truth,  he  was  made  free.  "Now,"  said  he,  "I 
became  happy;  now  the  whole  of  the  Bible,  even  heaven  itself, 
was  open  to  me." 

Writing  of  his  work  at  Wittenberg,  his  fine  interpreter,  Pro- 
fessor Lindsay,  says  that  "his  lectures  were  experimental.  He 
started  with  the  fact  of  man's  sin,  the  possibility  of  reaching  a 
sense  of  pardon  and  of  fellowship  with  God  through  trust  in  His 
promises.  From  the  beginning  we  find,  in  the  germ,  what  grew 
to  be  the  main  thoughts  in  the  later  Lutheran  theology.  Men  are 
redeemed  apart  from  any  merits  of  their  own;  God's  grace  is 
really  His  mercy  revealed  in  the  mission  and  work  of  Christ;  it 
has  to  do  with  the  forgiveness  of  sins  and  is  the  fulfillment  of 
His  promises  ;  man's  faith  is  trust  in  the  historical  work  of  Christ 
and  in  the  verity  of  God."  From  lecturing  he  passed  to  preach- 
ing, although  in  this,  as  in  all  other  steps  of  his  progress,  not 
without  a  struggle.  He  was  constantly  under  an  awful  sense  of 
the  responsibility  of  speaking  to  the  people  in  God's  stead,  and  it 
required  the  urgency  of  Staupitz  to  persuade  him  to  be  obedient 
to  the  call.  He  carried  with  him  into  this  part  of  his  work  the 
timidity  of  the  monk,  but  the  fire  and  magnetism  of  a  master 
mind.  In  the  history  of  the  pulpit  Luther  has  had  but  few 
equals.  His  natural  advantages  were  very  great.  In  a  large  de- 
gree he  possessed  that  fulness  of  being  and  co-ordination  of  his 
powers  which  are  of  such  immense  value  in  the  work  of  preach- 


96  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

ing.  He  had  a  boundless  faith  combined  with  a  boundless  and 
masculine  joy  in  God  that  put  the  note  of  triumph  into  his  pulpit 
ministrations.  His  strong  and  rich  voice,  his  remarkable  capacity 
for  popularizing  the  truths  of  the  Gospel,  his  full  knowledge, 
quickness  of  perception,  added  to  overflowing  feeling,  unaffected 
sincerity  and  deep-seated  conviction,  made  of  him  the  most  com- 
manding preacher  of  his  day.  At  Wittenberg,  the  seat  of  his 
teaching  and  preaching,  he  soon  became  a  great  personality, 
and  his  genial  manhood,  his  realism  and  courage,  his  frankness, 
sincerity  and  homely  common  sense  made  him  to  be  both  admired 
and  loved. 

The  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Theology  enabled  him  to  add  to  ser- 
mons preached  in  the  monastery,  in  the  royal  chapel  and  in  the 
church,  university  lectures  on  the  text  of  the  Scriptures,  and  of 
this  work  it  was  said  "never  in  any  Saxon  professorial  chair  was 
heard  such  luminous  explanation."  In  this  field  he  delighted,  and 
in  the  preparation  of  such  lectures  he  sometimes  passed  whole 
nights.  Eminent  doctors  came  to  listen  and  retired  full  of  ad- 
miration. The  venerable  Pollich,  known  by  the  sobriquet  "Lux 
Mundi,"  heard  him,  and  struck  with  wonder,  exclaimed,  "This 
father  hath  profound  insight,  exceeding  imagination;  he  will 
trouble  the  doctors  before  he  has  done." 

In  1511  Luther  was  sent  on  the  affairs  of  the  Augustinian 
Order  to  Rome.  This  was  a  welcome  mission.  To  see  the  im- 
perial seat  of  the  papacy  was  an  ardent  desire  of  his  heart.  This 
opportunity  to  study  the  papacy  in  the  very  center  of  its  power 
and  in  its  full-blown  magnificence  was  one  of  the  most  important 
elements  in  the  Reformer's  education.  To  one  of  his  thirsting 
mind  and  religious  fervor  such  an  opportunity  was  hailed  with 
inexpressible  delight.  He  had  been  doubting  the  practices  of  the 
Church,  but  no  thought  of  adverse  criticism  had  yet  arisen  in  his 
mind.  He  was  yet  the  devoted  Augustinian  brother  and  firm  and 
full  believer  in  the  one  Holy  Catholic  Church.  He  was  no 
schismatic  bent  upon  the  division  of  the  body  of  Christ.  Coming 
in  sight  of  Italy  from  the  southern  slopes  of  the  Alps,  he  fell  upon 
his  knees  and  with  uplifted  hands  cried  out,  "I  greet  thee,  holy 
Rome,  thrice  holy  from  the  blood  of  the  martyrs  which  has  been 
shed  in  thee."  He  soon  was  aware  of  the  fact  that  he  had  not 
been  ushered  into  the  seat  of  holiness.  Upon  the  pontifical 
throne  he  found  the  worldly,  ambitious  and  warlike  Julius  II,  a 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  97 

man  thoroughly  devoted  to  temporal  prospects.  In  the  convent 
where  he  was  entertained  by  the  Augustinian  fraters  they  smiled 
at  the  simple  faith  of  the  German  pilgrim,  winking  at  one  another 
over  his  sober  sincerity  and  making  light  of  his  learning.  What 
he  saw  and  heard  there  made  an  ineffaceable  impression  upon 
him,  although  not  producing  any  immediate  result.  He  observed 
priests  who  carried  religious  indifference  to  the  point  of  levity 
and  mockery.  "I  would  not  take,"  said  he,  "a  hundred  thou- 
sand florins  not  to  have  seen  Rome.  I  have  said  many  masses 
there,  and  heard  many  said,  so  that  I  shudder  when  I  think  of  it. 
There  I  heard,  among  other  coarse  jests,  courtiers  laughing  at 
table  and  bragging  that  some  said  mass  and  repeated  these  words 
over  the  bread  and  wine:  Panis  es,  et  panis  manebis;  vinum  es, 
et  vinum  manehis." 

He  was  deeply  pained  by  the  loose  principles  and  worse  than 
loose  practices  of  his  brethren.  He  saw,  heard,  studied  carefully 
and  thought  much,  and  bold  and  strong  were  the  impressions  made 
upon  his  mind  and  which  he  carried  to  the  end  of  his  days.  The 
scenes  which  passed  before  his  eyes  had  but  little  influence  in 
strengthening  his  love  for  the  Church,  although  for  the  time  the 
fervor  of  his  monastic  devotion  burned  bright  amid  all  this 
blasphemy.  He  went  the  round  of  all  the  churches  and  believed 
all  the  lying  legends  repeated  to  him,  but  while  he  was  ascending 
the  famous  Pilate's  Staircase  as  a  reverent  and  penitential  pil- 
grim, the  painful  task  was  at  least  arrested  by  the  voice  that  kept 
sounding  in  his  ears,  "The  just  shall  live  by  faith." 

After  his  experience  and  observations  here  he  once  more 
turned  his  face  northward  toward  his  own  Germany,  where  re- 
ligion-had more  depth  and  sincerity,  no  one  in  the  mighty  city 
there  on  the  Tiber  giving  even  a  passing  thought  to  the  future  of 
this  inconspicuous  and  scholarly  monk,  so  soon  by  his  words  to 
shake  the  throne  of  the  pontiffs,  which  for  centuries  had  even 
dictated  to  kings  and  princes.  He  took  with  him  an  abhorrence  of 
the  superstition  and  immorality  of  the  Church  at  its  fountain 
head,  which  never  left  him.  His  real  sentiments  as  he  turned 
away  from  Rome  are  probably  expressed  correctly  in  the  words 
of  Dr.  Dorner :  "Luther  returned  home  with  his  enthusiasm  for 
Rome  cooled  down,  still  without  being  conscious  to  himself  of  in- 
ward disaffection  toward  her,  or  of  departure  from  the  ways  of 
the  Church." 


98  LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

III 

In  the  life  of  Luther,  prior  to  his  excommunication  in  1520, 
there  are  three  events  of  outstanding  significance.  The  one  is 
associated  with  the  meadow  outside  of  Erfurt,  where,  as  the 
story  runs,  the  lightning  striking  at  his  feet,  he  resolved  to  give 
his  life  to  religious  pursuits  and  become  a  monk.  The  second  is 
connected  with  the  Augustinian  monastery  inside  the  city  gates. 
There  in  his  religious  struggles  he  tried  the  medieval  theory  of 
salvation  by  means  of  penitential  works,  through  and  through 
from  top  to  bottom,  tested  it  out  and  discovered  its  inadequacy 
and  unscripturalness.  The  third  of  these  events  is  associated 
with  the  Castle  Church  at  Wittenberg  where  he  nailed  up  his 
theses,  proposing  to  discuss  the  unholy  traffic  in  indulgences  and 
the  effrontery  with  which  it  was  being  conducted  by  Tetzel, 
famous  for  some  time  as  a  successful  huckster  of  this  order  of 
wares,  which  had  been  entrusted  to  him  by  the  Elector  Albert, 
Archbishop  of  Mainz.  The  first  was  a  scene  connected  with  a 
deeply  religious  young  man's  resolve ;  the  second  a  scene  of  the 
earnest  search  of  a  deeply  religious  man  for  an  answer  to  the 
question,  "What  must  I  do  to  be  saved" ;  and  the  third  a  scene  in 
which  this  same  deeply  religious  man  asserts  himself  in  a  deci- 
sive action — in  which  the  great  reformer  inaugurated  the  great 
work  of  his  life.  "If  God  permit,"  said  he,  "I  will  put  a  hole  in 
Tetzel's  drum,"  and  history  testifies  that  by  the  grace  of  God  he 
fulfilled  his  own  prophecy  with  far-reaching  and  permanent  con- 
sequences. 

For  the  next  five  years  after  his  return  from  the  visit  to  Rome 
Luther  lived  the  life  of  a  hard-working  professor  of  theology 
and  a  self-denying  monastic.  His  home  was  in  the  Augustinian 
cloister  at  Wittenberg,  less  than  a  mile  from  the  Castle  Church, 
so  called  because  it  was  part  of  the  residence  of  his  Electoral 
Highness,  Frederick  of  Saxony.  He  was  still  a  devoted  son  and 
servant  of  the  Church,  but  he  had  felt  the  power  of  the  new  ap- 
prehension of  how  a  man  is  justified  before  God.  He  did  not  yet 
dream  of  separation  from  the  Church,  and  quietly  continued  his 
preaching  and  lectures  on  the  books  of  the  Bible  to  which  he  ad- 
dressed his  fine  powers  of  interpretation. 

The  sale  of  indulgences  was  the  expedient  hit  upon  by  Pope 
Leo  X  for  the  liquidation  of  old  debts  and  the  completion  of  St. 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  99 

Peter's,  and  Germany,  as  he  thought,  presented  the  most  promis- 
ing field  for  the  prosecution  of  a  profitable  business.  Here, 
thought  he  and  his  counsellors,  among  the  pious  and  sincere  Ger- 
man peoples  we  may  find  a  splendid  field  to  sell  passports  to 
heaven  and  vastly  increase  the  papal  resources.  Luther  was  at 
the  height  of  his  influence  in  Wittenberg,  when  the  peddler  Tet- 
zel made  his  way  toward  Saxony.  Turning  one  day  to  Staupitz, 
Brother  Martin  said  with  all  the  indignation  of  his  great  nature, 
"I  will  declaim  against  this  gross  and  profane  error,  write  against 
it,  do  all  in  my  power  to  destroy  it."  Tetzel  drove  his  trade  after 
a  wonderful  manner,  even  going  so  far  as  to  grant  indulgences 
for  sins  that  had  not  yet  even  been  committed,  possibly  not  even 
thought  of.  The  alleged  object  of  the  plenary  indulgence  was  to 
contribute  to  the  completion  of  the  Vatican  Basilica,  while  its 
boasted  efficacy  was  to  restore  the  purchaser  to  the  grace  of  God 
and  completely  exempt  him  from  the  pains  of  purgatory.  There 
were,  however,  minor  forms  of  the  papal  blessing,  producing 
lesser  favors.  For  the  plenary  indulgence  confession  and  con- 
trition were  affirmed  to  be  necessary,  while  "the  others  could  be 
obtained,  without  contrition  or  confession,  by  money  alone." 

It  can  easily  be  imagined  what  a  system  this  was  in  the  hands 
of  an  unscrupulous,  low-minded  and  voluble  salesman  as  he  pro- 
claimed aloud  the  merits  of  his  paper  pardons.  It  was  wonder- 
fully successful,  and  money  flowed  in  from  every  quarter  to  find 
its  way  into  the  papal  treasure  box  at  Rome.  Half  in  joy  and 
half  in  complaint  the  bishops  cried  out  against  the  weight  of  the 
silver:  "Hundred  weights  of  German  coin  fly  light  as  feathers 
over  the  Alps,  and  no  bearer  of  the  heaviest  burdens,  not  even 
Atlas  himself,  can  drag  such  heaps  of  money." 

In  1517,  when  Tetzel  came  into  the  neighborhood  of  Witten- 
berg on  the  Saxon  frontier,  Luther  found  that  the  consciences  of 
many  of  his  flock  were  being  debauched  and  turned  from  the 
right  ways  of  the  Lord.  His  spirit  was  stirred  within  him  at  this 
shocking  mockery  of  the  claims  of  true  repentance.  This  scan- 
dalous traffic  in  holy  things  aroused  him  to  a  high  pitch  of  excite- 
ment. He  felt  the  necessity  of  taking  some  decided  step,  as  no 
one  else  seemed  disposed  to  interfere.  He  took  counsel  with  God 
and  his  own  true  heart,  and  with  none  besides.  He  was  now  ready 
for  his  great  mission.  He  went  over  the  whole  case  against 
Rome  as  he  saw  it,  and  the  result  was  that  on  the  eve  of  All 


100         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

Saints,  when  the  relics,  collected  with  great  pains  by  Frederick 
for  his  Castle  Church,  were  being  exposed  to  view  and  multitudes 
were  crowding  in  to  gaze  on  them,  Luther  appeared  among  the 
crowd  and  nailed  upon  the  famous  church  door  his  ninety-five 
theses  on  the  doctrine  of  indulgences,  which  theses  he  proposed 
to  maintain  in  the  University  against  all  opponents,  by  word  of 
mouth  or  in  writing.  It  was  October  31,  1517,  a  day  great  in 
the  annals  of  the  Christian  Church  and  the  future  of  the  most 
advanced  peoples  of  the  earth.  It  was  the  beginning  of  the  storm 
which  lasted  until  the  day  of  the  Reformer's  death,  February 
18,  1546.  It  reached  even  further,  until  one  hundred  and  two 
years  later  the  peace  of  Westphalia  terminated  the  long  struggle 
of  the  thirty  years'  war.  That  walk  of  Luther  down  the  street 
of  the  old  town,  passing  the  houses  afterward  occupied  by  Me- 
lanchthon  and  Lucas  Cranach,  on  that  October  day  was  in  its 
consequences  the  most  momentous  ever  made  by  any  man,  for  it 
inaugurated  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  mankind. 

It  did  not  occur  to  the  Reformer  that  he  was  starting  a  public 
movement  against  the  teaching  of  the  Church,  but  the  posting  of 
the  theses  is  usually  regarded  as  the  starting  point  of  the  Refor- 
mation. According  to  the  custom  of  the  time,  the  theses  were 
simply  intended  to  be  a  challenge  for  the  public  discussion  of  the 
subject  of  indulgences  and  their  sale.  In  a  day  when  there  were 
no  newspapers  or  magazines  the  method  adopted  was  one  of  the 
ways  of  getting  matters  of  timely  interest  discussed.  To  arrest 
Tetzel's  unhallowed  hawking  of  the  indulgences,  to  correct 
abuses,  and  to  bring  about  an  improvement  of  religion — these 
were  among  the  purposes  of  Luther's  challenge.  There  was 
nothing  revolutionary,  not  even  anything  extraordinary  in  what 
he  had  done.  Had  some  one  told  the  Wittenberg  professor  and 
preacher  that  the  act  of  that  now  famous  day  would  in  later  times 
be  looked  upon  as  one  of  the  decisive  turning  points  in  the  history 
of  mankind,  as  the  opening  of  a  new  era  in  the  religious,  social 
and  political  development  of  the  race,  his  astonishment  would 
have  been  unlimited. 

But  Luther  had  traveled  farther  toward  the  restoration  of  the 
Pauline  conception  of  salvation  than  he  was  aware.  He  had 
struck  at  the  core  of  an  infamous  evil,  when,  in  his  first  thesis 
he  declared,  "Our  Lord  and  Master  Jesus  Christ  in  saying,  'Re- 
pent Ye,'  meant  that  the  entire  life  of  the  believer  should  be  peni- 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  101 

tence,"  while  in  a  succeeding  thesis  he  declared  that  "the  pope  had 
no  power  to  forgive  any  guilt."  In  emphasizing  the  adequacy  of 
genuine  repentance  to  secure  remission  of  sins,  in  affirming  that 
the  papal  office  in  connection  with  the  pardon  of  sins  is  declara- 
tive only,  he  was  in  reality  dealing  a  blow  at  the  foundation  of 
priestly  mediation  as  it  was  affirmed  in  the  unscriptural  and  un- 
historical  assumptions  of  the  Roman  hierarchy.  True  repentance 
is  an  inward  act  of  the  soul,  "a  change  of  mind,"  as  in  later  writ- 
ings Luther  so  often  reminded  his  adversaries,  as  he  from  time  to 
time  led  them  back  to  the  meaning  of  the  Greek  word.  Unaware 
as  he  was  of  the  full  import  of  his  theses,  he  nevertheless  em- 
bodied in  them  the  main  principles  of  the  Reformation.  The 
very  first  words  of  the  first  of  them,  "Our  Lord  and  Master  Jesus 
Christ,"  constitute  an  appeal  to  Christ's  authority  as  the  supreme 
and  final  requirement  and  law  for  all  believers. 

No  one  was  more  surprised  at  the  popular  reception  accorded 
the  theses  than  the  author  of  them  himself.  They  were  too  ac- 
ceptable to  the  widespread  indignation  at  the  abuse  of  indulgences 
not  to  find  rapid  circulation.  Instead  of  being  confined  to  a  small 
circle  of  the  learned,  they  elicited  a  warm  reception  and  quick- 
ened interest  among  all  classes  of  people.  In  fourteen  days  they 
were  being  read  and  pondered  all  over  Germany.  Myconius,  the 
contemporary  and  earliest  biographer  of  Luther,  in  writing  of  the 
theses  said  that  "in  four  weeks  they  had  spread  through  Chris- 
tendom as  though  angels  were  the  postmen."  The  excitement 
produced  was  intense  and  widespread.  Written  in  Latin,  the 
theses  were  soon  translated  into  German  and  scattered  broadcast 
throughout  the  land.  The  interest  grew  and  strengthened,  and 
sympathetic  voices  were  heard  on  every  side.  At  last  the  people 
had  found  their  champion,  the  man  who  had  dared  to  speak  and 
voice  their  dissent  and  protest.  "The  reason  why  popular  ex- 
citement was  so  quickly  generated,"  said  Prof.  Hulme,  "was  that 
the  fuel  was  ready  for  the  flame.  The  leader  for  whom  Ger- 
many had  long  been  waiting  had  appeared  upon  the  scene." 
Silence  was  no  longer  possible,  and  some  attempts  at  refutation 
on  the  part  of  the  Church  were  undertaken.  They  were,  how- 
ever, but  mere  echoes  of  an  old  medieval  scholastic  theology 
presented  in  its  most  commercial  and  papistical  aspects. 

Tetzel  at  Frankfort-on-the-Oder  continued  to  abuse  and  rave. 
Hockstratten,  Professor  at  Cologne,  and  head  inquisitor  of  Ger- 


102         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

many,  demanded  that  the  dangerous  heretic  at  Wittenberg  should 
be  sent  to  the  flames.  Sylvester  Prierias,  the  general  of  the 
Dominicans  and  censor  of  the  press  at  Rome,  published  a  reply, 
and  there  were  disputes  and  debates  with  Miltitz,  Cajetan  and 
Eck,  the  chosen  champions  of  the  pope.  But  the  die  was  cast. 
Luther,  the  monk,  had  become  Luther  the  Reformer.  Intimida- 
tion, threatening,  bribery  and  persuasion  were  all  in  vain.  He 
stubbornly  refused  to  be  convinced  except  upon  the  authority  of 
God's  word,  and  boldly  declared :  'The  more  they  rage,  the  more 
I  go  forward."  The  whole  of  Germany  had  been  surcharged 
with  indignation  against  Rome  and  the  indulgences.  A  spark  was 
enough  to  set  the  whole  land  ablaze ;  the  theses  kindled  the  fire, 
and  the  Reformation  under  Luther  began. 

The  times  called  for  a  man  of  the  people,  who,  with  a  full 
knowledge  of  the  damage  caused  to  religion  by  the  abuses  that 
had  fastened  upon  the  Church,  could  help  them  regain  their 
rights  and  set  them  free  from  their  manifold  fetters.  It  is,  ac- 
cordingly, not  surprising  that  Luther's  work  was  so  heartily  wel- 
comed by  the  popular  judgment  when  we  consider  both  the  man 
and  the  existing  conditions.  To  meet  the  requirements  imposed 
by  the  conditions,  to  lead  in  the  new  work  of  mental  and  spiritual 
emancipation,  he  was  qualified  with  popular  gifts  as  a  preacher, 
teacher  and  polemicist,  united  with  a  courage  that  feared  not  the 
powers  of  the  world,  the  Church  or  the  devil. 

Writing  to  Rome  of  a  formerly  good  and  devoted  Catholic  city, 
but  two  years  after  the  theses,  a  papal  ambassador  said  that  now, 
of  five  men  there  were  scarcely  two  who  held  fast  in  loyalty  to 
the  papal  See.  The  Church  had  been  smitten  with  the  blindness 
of  decay,  and  could  not  discern  the  signs  of  the  times.  Falsehood 
had  enfeebled  her  judgment  and  undermined  her  strength,  and 
she  went  staggering  on  her  way  in  the  midst  of  decimating  forces 
to  her  overthrow. 

Luther  was  hailed  more  and  more  as  the  champion  of  the  rising 
national  indignation  and  revolt.  It  was  becoming  more  and  more 
manifest  every  day  that  the  real  and  overshadowing  questions 
were  Germany  or  Rome,  German  independence  or  hierarchical 
bondage,  and  even  more  fundamental  to  both  religion  and  civiliza- 
tion, Scripture  or  Church,  conscience  or  authority;  whether  the 
spiritual  power  has  the  right  to  rule  in  its  own  distinctive  sphere 
without  hindrance  from  the  secular  power.     During  the  trying 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  103 

period  extending  from  the  nailing  of  the  theses  to  1520,  during 
which  the  Reformation  was,  step  by  step,  progressing  along  the 
evangelical  way  and  to  the  proper  co-ordination  of  soundly 
Protestant  principles  into  a  system — a  period  full  of  excitement 
and  necessitating  incessant  studies — Luther  did  not  relax  in  his 
work  at  the  university. 

It  is  of  interest  to  note  something  of  his  appearance  during  this 
period.  The  Humanist  Marcellanus,  describing  the  young  monk 
on  the  occasion  of  the  famous  Leipzic  disputation  with  Eck  in 
1519,  when  he  attacked  not  only  indulgences  but  also  the  doctrines 
of  the  primacy  of  the  pope  and  purgatory,  says:  "He  was  of 
medium  height.  His  face  and  whole  body  were  as  thin  as  a 
skeleton,  caused  by  long  study  and  much  care.  His  voice  was 
clear.  His  address  bore  every  mark  of  great  learning  and  ac- 
quaintance with  the  Bible.  His  bearing  was  friendly  and  attrac- 
tive. He  was  full  of  vitality,  and  calm  and  joyous  amid  the 
threats  of  his  enemies,  as  one  would  be  who  undertakes  great 
things  with  God's  help.  In  controversy  he  was  defiant  and  in- 
cisive, as  a  theologian  ought  to  be." 

IV 

The  year  1520  has  very  properly  been  called  "the  great  year  of 
Reformation  history."  Shortly  after  the  Leipzic  disputation 
Luther  took  occasion  to  reaffirm,  and  with  more  emphasis,  the 
position  which  he  had  taken  when  he  confronted  John  Eck,  the 
most  able  of  the  defenders  of  the  papal  claims  in  his  day.  Early 
in  1520,  in  the  study  of  what  was  known  as  the  "Donation  of 
Constantine" — one  of  the  famous  fraudulent  treatises  put  forth 
in  the  medieval  period  to  bolster  up  papal  claims — he  reached  the 
conclusion,  not  only  of  the  bogus  character  of  the  document,  but 
also  the  conviction  that  the  whole  papal  dominion,  was  built  upon 
falsehood.  About  the  same  time,  also,  he  confessed  that  a  better 
acquaintance  with  the  writings  of  Huss,  who  had  been  burned  at 
Constance  one  hundred  and  five  years  before,  had  assured  him 
that  he  himself,  as  well  as  Paul  and  Augustine,  were  genuine 
Hussites,  and  had  brought  home  to  him  the  ominous  and  distress- 
ing fact  that,  along  with  Huss,  evangelical  truth  had  been  con- 
demned and  burned.  He  was  now  looked  upon  by  his  people  as 
a  national  hero,  and  he  was  coming  to  look  upon  his  own  work 
as  a  national  struggle  for  freedom  from  the  papacy  and  all  that 


104         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

that  system  of  ecclesiasticism  represented.  He  was  rapidly  be- 
coming the  mouthpiece  and  prophet  of  all  those  among  his  people 
who  were  sighing  under  the  yoke  of  papal  tyranny,  and  yearning 
for  national  and  social  liberty.  In  the  constructive  work  he  was 
now  about  to  undertake,  Luther  did  not  shift  his  position.  From 
the  beginning  his  work  was  distinctively  religious.  His  motives 
were  of  the  same  order,  and  to  the  end  of  his  life  they  remained 
the  same.  The  beginning  of  his  struggle  with  Rome  had  grown 
out  of  his  own  experience.  But  the  more  experience  he  had  with 
the  representatives  of  the  hierarchical  machine  and  its  machina- 
tions, and  the  more  he  studied  the  questions  involved  in  his  con- 
troversies, the  clearer  did  he  perceive  that  Rome  ruled,  not  only 
over  the  beliefs  of  the  Church  and  over  the  conscience  of  the 
people,  but  that  she  also  had  the  dominating  place  in  the  whole  of 
the  political  and  social  life  of  the  nation.  The  papacy  he  con- 
cluded was  not  only  a  Church,  but  a  great  world  power. 

No  man  ever  stood  more  fully  as  the  exponent  of  his  nation's 
hopes  than  did  Luther  at  this  time,  or  answered  more  nobly  in 
response  to  those  hopes. 

During  this  great  year  of  1520  he  issued  three  powerful,  and 
to  this  day  fundamental,  revolutionary  and  reconstructive  treat- 
ises of  the  highest  importance.  In  August  he  put  forth  his  ap- 
peal known  as  the  "Address  to  the  German  Nobility."  It  was 
an  unsparing  arraignment  of  abuses  and  a  triumphant  call  to  the 
German  people  to  enter  upon  the  work  of  reforming  the  Church, 
and  to  redress  the  grievances  from  which  the  land  had  long  been 
suffering.  He  struck  a  clear  and  loud  note  of  national  inde- 
pendence, and  summoned  the  Christian  powers  of  his  country  to 
his  aid.  He  reaffirmed,  in  brief  and  emphatic  language,  the  great 
truth  that  had  begun  to  dawn  upon  him  at  Leipzic — that  all  Chris- 
tians are  priests,  and  that  the  ministry  is  an  office  in  the  Church 
and  not  a  special  order  of  men.  It  is  an  unscriptural  assumption 
that  the  laity  constitute  only  a  passive  element  in  the  Church,  and 
that  the  management  of  spiritual  affairs  belongs  exclusively  to 
the  clergy,  who  constitute  the  spiritual  order,  having  been  sealed 
with  an  indelible  character  by  the  sacrament  of  ordination,  and 
being  endowed  with  special  prerogatives  and  immunities,  which 
place  them  in  a  class  apart  and  distinct  from  all  other  men.  The 
claims  of  a  special  priesthood  to  stand  between  laymen  and  God 
are  worthless.     All  Christians  belong  to  the  spiritual  order,  the 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  105 

distinction  between  priest  and  laymen  being  only  official,  the  priest 
being  the  representative  of  the  people.  God  is  accessible  to  men 
without  any  artificial  and  unwarranted  sacerdotal  intervention. 
"All  Christians,"  said  Luther  in  his  appeal,  "are  truly  of  the 
spiritual  estate,  and  there  is  no  difference  among  them  save  of 
office  only,"  and  more,  the  pope  has  no  monopoly  in  the  interpreta- 
tion of  Scripture  or  exclusive  authority  for  summoning  general 
councils.  This  appeal  was  a  firebrand  thrown  into  the  ranks  of 
the  papal  ecclesiastics.  Written  in  their  own  tongue,  wielded 
with  the  unusual  force  of  the  great  Luther,  it  reached  the  heart 
of  the  German  people,  aroused  them  still  further  and  increased 
their  hostility  to  the  long-standing  grievances  against  which  they 
were  in  a  constantly  increasing  state  of  revolt. 

The  "Appeal  to  the  Nobility"  was  followed  at  the  beginning  of 
October,  1520,  with  another  treatise,  entitled  "The  Babylonish 
Captivity  of  the  Church."  This  was  intended  for  the  learned 
classes  and  was  accordingly  written  in  Latin,  but  was  immediately 
translated  and  widely  circulated.  It  was  a  polemical  theological 
document  under  the  form  of  a  critique  of  the  Romish  doctrine  of 
the  Sacraments,  as  that  doctrine  was  set  forth  in  the  scholas- 
tic theology.  Their  number  had  been  exaggerated  and  their 
efficacy  made  magical.  Luther  attacked  with  vigor  this  medieval 
conception  of  the  Sacraments,  by  means  of  which  the  Church  ac- 
companies and  controls  the  life  of  the  Christian  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave,  bringing  every  important  act  and  event  in  human 
life  under  the  power  and  authority  of  the  priest,  with  the  terrify- 
ing adjuncts  of  excommunication  and  interdict  at  his  disposal 
also.  This  pamphlet  of  far-reaching  consequences  was  the 
severest  assault  he  had  yet  made  on  the  pretensions  of  the  Roman 
Church.  Its  tone  is  that  of  great  boldness,  rising  at  times  into  a 
ringing  defiance.  "Since  the  Bishop  of  Rome,"  says  the  Captiv- 
ity, "has  ceased  to  be  a  bishop  and  has  become  a  tyrant,  I  fear 
absolutely  none  of  his  decrees,  since  I  know  that  neither  he  nor 
even  a  general  council  has  any  power  to  establish  new  articles  of 
faith."  The  Sacraments  "were  intended  to  be  the  seals  to  our 
titles  as  free  children  of  God ;  the  pope  uses  them  to  keep  us  in 
bondage  from  birth  to  death.  The  seven  Sacraments  are  the 
seven  rings  in  the  chain  which  yoke  us  to  the  Roman  priesthood." 
"The  papacy  is  nothing  else  than  the  kingdom  of  Bablyon  and  of 
very  antichrist." 


106         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

Such  was  Luther's  calmness  and  assurance  during  this  tumultu- 
ous year  of  1520  that  he  wrote,  before  it  had  closed,  another 
treatise  in  marked  contrast  with  his  other  polemical  works,  which 
were  fierce  onsets  against  Rome  and  intended  to  break  down  the 
tyranny  of  the  papacy.  This  was  his  tract  entitled  "Christian 
Freedom,"  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  widely  treasured  of  his 
writings.  It  sustains  the  double  thesis,  "A  Christian  man  is  the 
most  free  lord  of  all  and  subject  to  none;  a  Christian  man  is  the 
most  dutiful  servant  of  all  and  subject  to  all."  It  is  largely  oc- 
cupied with  the  office  of  faith,  which  is  declared  to  be  the  medium 
of  liberty  as  it  is  also  the  medium  of  justification.  It  is  an  illus- 
tration of  the  great  paradox  of  Christian  experience.  The  child 
of  God  is  free,  because  justified  by  faith  and  united  to  Christ  his 
living  Lord  and  Head ;  he  is  a  servant  through  love,  because  he 
must  bring  his  body  into  subjection  to  his  regenerated  spirit  and 
aid  his  fellow  man.  "A  Christian  man  does  not  live  to  himself, 
but  in  Christ  and  in  his  neighbor,  or  else  is  no  Christian ;  in 
Christ  by  faith,  in  his  neighbor  by  love." 

The  liberty  of  a  Christian  man  sounds  out  the  message  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  which  inspires  this  tract.  True  liberty 
means  not  legalistic,  Judaistic  bondage  to  the  law,  but  freedom  in 
the  Gospel.  It  is  an  appeal  for  freedom  in  Christ,  but  not  free- 
dom from  Christ.  It  is  a  clear  and  tender  setting  forth  of  the  po- 
sition of  the  child  of  God,  who  is  free  from  all  legal  obligations 
through  faith,  but  a  debtor  to  all  goodness  and  all  men  through 
love.  It  breathes  the  spirit  of  the  Pauline  conceptions  of  faith, 
grace  and  love,  never  to  be  dissociated  from  good  works  as 
their  expression.  It  manifests  the  spirit  of  tranquillity  and  com- 
forting assurance  in  a  period  of  angry  controversy,  and  places  its 
author  not  only  in  the  list  of  great  Christian  leaders,  but  also 
among  the  saints  and  scriptural  mystics  of  all  ages.  Prof.  A.  C. 
McGiffirt  calls  this  writing  of  Luther  the  most  beautiful  of  all 
his  works  and  the  one  which  contains  the  finest  statement  of  his 
Christian  faith. 

These  three  documents,  which  have  been  called  the  "Primary 
Works  of  the  Reformation,"  mark  the  crisis  of  the  movement. 
Appealing  on  the  one  hand  to  the  national  interests  of  the  Ger- 
man people,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  their  reviving  spiritual  life, 
they  sounded  the  two  most  powerful  chords  then  vibrating  in  the 
nation.     "They  contain,"  says  Ranke,  the  historian,  "the  revival 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  107 

of  the  whole  Reformation."  They  are  marked  at  places  by  the 
note  of  tumult  and  assault,  but  the  dominant  tone  is  constructive. 
The  note  of  victory  sounds  out  in  all  of  them.  The  freshness  and 
power  with  which  the  leading  principles  of  Protestantism  were 
stated  in  them  have  likely  never  been  equaled,  certainly  never 
surpassed.  These  three  documents  of  the  date  of  1520  contain 
the  negative  and  positive  program  of  the  Reformation. 

Writing  of  them  Dr.  David  Schaff  has  said,  "Luther  in  his 
three  reformatory  treatises  written  in  1520,  'The  Appeal  to  the 
German  Nobles,'  'The  Babylonish  Captivity  of  the  Church,'  and 
'The  Freedom  of  the  Christian  Man,'  set  forth  all  the  distinctive 
doctrinal  positions  of  the  Reformation  with  a  strength  of  convic- 
tion and  ardor  of  expression  never  excelled  since  the  days  of  St. 
Paul."  Says  Kostlin,  the  biographer  of  the  Reformer,  "These 
three  treatises  taken  together  are  the  chief  reformatory  writing  of 
Luther.  In  the  first  one  he  calls  Christendom  in  general  to  the 
battle  against  the  outward  abuses  and  pretensions  of  the  pope  and 
of  the  class  that  boasted  of  being  the  only  one  possessing  a  spirit- 
ual and  priestly  character;  in  the  second  he  exposes  and  also 
breaks  the  spiritual  bond  whereby  this  class,  through  the  so-called 
means  of  grace,  kept  souls  in  bondage,  while  in  the  third  he 
reaches  the  most  important  and  profound  question  pertaining  to 
the  relation  of  the  Christian  soul  to  its  God  and  Redeemer  and 
the  way  and  nature  of  salvation.  Here  he  lays  explicitly  and 
firmly  the  strong  foundation  on  which  the  Christian  may  build  his 
life  and  character,  and  of  which  no  spiritual  tyranny  can  rob 
him." 

The  man  who  best  of  all  in  his  own  and  later  generations  repre- 
sented the  German  character  was  now  standing  as  the  masterful 
leader  at  the  head  of  a  great  Christian  and  national  movement. 

From  the  nailing  up  of  the  theses  on  the  last  day  of  October, 
1517,  to  the  close  of  1520,  Luther  had  traveled  a  long  and  trouble- 
some road,  but  it  ended  in  the  reassertion  of  doctrines  that  were 
essential  to  the  restoration  of  the  Church  to  its  apostolic  ideals. 
The  year  1520  was  memorable  for  one  other  incident.  In  Jan- 
uary of  that  year  Eck  went  to  Rome  to  secure  Luther's  condem- 
nation. His  malicious  but  unwise  devotion  to  his  task  was  at 
last  rewarded,  and  the  wily  adversary  of  Luther  in  the  famous 
disputation  at  Leipzic  was  permitted  to  bring  back  to  Germany  a 
papal  fulmination  against  the  Reformer.     The  bull  of  excommu- 


108         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

nication  was  issued  July  15,  1520,  and  after  being  published  at 
several  other  places  a  copy  of  it  at  length  reached  Germany  in 
October.  It  condemned  forty-one  propositions  from  the  writ- 
ings of  Luther,  condemned  to  the  flames  all  that  he  had  written 
containing  these  propositions,  and  declared  the  obstinate  heretic 
to  be  exposed  to  all  the  penalties  befitting  his  case  unless  he 
should  recant  in  sixty  days.  But  his  case  had  been  fully  laid 
before  the  people  whom  he  had  been  addressing,  and  in  their 
sympathy  and  support  he  was  strong.  The  bull  was  felt  to  be  an 
outrage  upon  the  public  opinion  of  the  land  and  an  insult  to  the 
Elector  Frederick,  who  took  the  position  that  Luther  was  not  to 
be  condemned  unheard,  and  that  he  should  have  a  safe  conduct 
to  and  from  any  place  accorded  him  for  a  hearing. 

The  rising  spirit  of  German  nationalism  was  finding  in  Luther's 
successive  steps  rallying  points  for  the  expression  of  its  energies. 
As  his  correspondence  shows,  it  was  with  no  surprise  or  trepida- 
tion that  the  Reformer  awaited  the  launching  of  the  inevitable 
document  from  Rome  that  would  cut  him  off  from  the  Church  of 
his  fathers.  When  it  came,  his  attitude  was  that  of  defiance. 
Instead  of  candid  and  open  discussion  and  some  attempt  at  the 
reformation  of  scandalous  and  acknowledged  abuses  in  the 
Church,  the  sole  endeavor  had  been  to  silence  him  at  any  cost, 
even  of  death,  imprisonment  or  exclusion  from  salvation.  Not 
only  was  he  being  condemned  unheard,  but  his  enemy  had  become 
his  judge  and  executioner.  His  arraignment  of  abuses  had 
proven  to  be  unanswerable,  and  the  papal  methods  of  dealing 
with  an  earnest  and  able  man's  convictions  had  broken  down  of 
their  own  ineffectiveness.  The  pope's  answer  to  one  of  the  sin- 
cere sons  of  the  Church  was  that  of  suppression,  and  the  method 
drove  Luther,  the  condemned  heretic,  to  become  Luther  the 
defiant  and  effective  rebel.  His  wrath  flamed  up  against  a 
Church  that  had  proven  itself  to  be  incapable  of  reform  and 
seeking  only  to  silence  and  destroy  such  as  preached  the  Gospel. 
It  was  something  for  one  man,  even  though  that  man  were 
Luther,  to  defy  the  power  which  for  a  thousand  years  had  been 
supreme  in  Christendom,  but  that  defiance  was  necessary  if  spirit- 
ual freedom  and  the  Gosepl  of  free  grace  were  once  more  to 
come  to  men,  of  if  even  Rome  herself  were  to  be  delivered  from  the 
bondage  of  her  own  self-imposed  abuses.  In  all  their  negotia- 
tions the  papal  nuncios  had  but  one  demand  to  make,  and  that  wa« 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  109 

silence,  and  in  case  that  was  declined,  that  the  penalties  for  ob- 
stinate heresy  should  be  inflicted.  In  the  face  of  the  serious  situa- 
tion confronting  him,  however,  the  note  of  confident  defiance 
rings  out  in  Luther's  appeal.  "I  appeal,"  said  he,  "from  the  pope, 
first,  as  an  unjust,  rash  and  tyrannical  judge,  who  condemns  me 
without  a  hearing,  and  without  giving  any  reasons  for  his  judg- 
ment ;  secondly,  as  a  heretic  and  an  apostate,  misled,  hardened  and 
condemned  by  the  Holy  Scriptures,  who  commands  me  to  deny 
that  Catholic  faith  is  necessary  in  the  use  of  the  Sacraments; 
thirdly,  as  an  enemy,  an  adversary,  and  antichrist  and  an  op- 
pressor of  Holy  Scripture,  who  dares  to  set  his  own  words  in  op- 
position to  the  Word  of  God ;  fourthly,  as  a  blasphemer,  a  proud 
contemner  of  the  Holy  Church  and  of  a  legitimate  council,  who 
maintains  that  a  council  is  nothing  of  itself." 

For  some  time  bonfires  had  been  made  of  Luther's  writings  in 
compliance  with  the  papal  command,  but  this  was  an  easy  in- 
dustry at  which  the  two  parties  could  play,  and  he  wanted  to 
show  that  he,  too,  could  apply  the  torch  to  books  which  were  in- 
capable of  both  physical  suffering  or  resistance.  To  his  spirit 
of  boldness  and  defiance  the  unconquerable  monk  now  added  the 
additional  offence  of  action.  On  the  10th  day  of  December, 
1520,  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  in  the  presence  of  a  large 
gathering  of  professors,  students  and  townspeople,  near  the 
Elster  gate  of  Wittenberg,  he  solemnly  committed  the  bull  of 
excommunication,  together  with  the  papal  decretals,  the  canon 
law  and  some  of  the  writings  of  Eck  and  Emser  to  the  flames, 
using  words  borrowed  from  Joshua's  judgment  of  Achan,  the 
thief  who  had  troubled  Israel,  "As  thou,  the  pope,  has  vexed 
the  Holy  One  of  the  Lord,  may  the  eternal  fire  vex  thee." 

Thus  terminated  the  unity  of  western  Christendom.  It  was  a 
bold  and  dramatic  event  which  won  not  only  the  applause  of  the 
youthful  students,  who  had  made  something  of  a  holiday  festi- 
val out  of  a  most  significant  event,  but  still  further  aroused  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  German  people.  It  was  the  irrevocable  act 
which  forever  severed  Luther  from  the  papacy.  Henceforth 
there  was  to  be  no  compromise,  and  no  truce  in  the  battle  begun 
was  possible.  The  spirit  of  independence,  growing  since  the  days 
of  Tauler  and  Huss,  had  asserted  itself  with  a  hitherto  unrecog- 
nized vigor;  was  shaking  off  the  incubus  which  had  for  cen- 
turies repressed  it,  and,  defying  the  powers  of  the  world,  was 


110         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

proclaiming  religious  liberty.  When,  near  the  Elster  gate,  Lu- 
ther kindled  the  fire  that  burned  the  bull,  the  decrees  and  the 
canons,  he  added  to  another  and  greater  fire — that  of  revolution 
and  reform — for  both  of  which  the  materials  were  already  at 
hand.  He  at  once  regarded  his  excommunication  as  an  emanci- 
pation from  all  the  restraints  of  popery  and  monasticism,  on  the 
very  next  day  after  the  spectacular  event  warning  his  students  in 
the  lecture-room  against  the  Roman  antichrist,  and  telling  them 
that  it  was  high  time  to  burn  the  papal  chair  with  all  its  false 
teachings  and  abominations. 

We  can  hardly  at  this  day  exaggerate  the  significance  of  this 
event.  "We  may  infer  from  this  document" — referring  to  the 
papal  bull  of  excommunication — says  the  older  Dr.  Schaff,  "in 
what  a  state  of  intellectual  slavery  Christendom  would  be  at  the 
present  time  if  the  papal  power  had  succeeded  in  crushing  the 
Reformation.  It  is  difficult  to  estimate  the  debt  we  owe  to 
Martin  Luther  for  freedom  and  progress." 

V 

Early  in  the  next  year,  1521,  a  demand  was  made  upon  Luther 
for  a  still  greater  exhibition  of  his  courage  than  that  displayed 
when  he  committed  the  bull  of  excommunication  to  the  flames. 
It  was  in  this  year  that,  in  obedience  to  the  imperial  summons,  he 
made  his  appearance  before  the  famous  diet.  On  the  28th  day  of 
January  Charles  V  opened  his  first  imperial  diet  of  the  sovereigns 
and  states  of  Germany  at  Worms,  that  historical  town  in  the 
Valley  of  the  Rhine.  On  March  15th  the  Emperor  sent  a  herald 
to  Luther,  commanding  him  to  appear  there  and  give  an  account, 
in  person,  of  his  books  and  doctrines.  The  case  of  the  Reformer 
was  one  of  the  principal  matters  demanding  settlement  at  that 
meeting.  Aleander,  the  Vatican  librarian  and  Greek  scholar, 
awaited  Luther's  coming  with  great  anxiety,  because  of  his  in- 
creasing popularity  among  the  German  people.  "There  are  here 
so  many  Lutherans,"  he  wrote  to  Eck ;  "that  not  only  all  men,  but 
even  the  sticks  and  the  stones  cry  out,  'Luther!' '  "Everybody  is 
against  us,"  he  dolefully  informed  Rome,  "and  these  mad  dogs  are 
well  equipped  with  literature  and  arms,  and  well  know  how  to 
boast  that  they  are  no  longer  beasts  without  skill,  like  their  fore- 
fathers, but  that  Italy  has  lost  its  hold  on  literature,  and  the  Tiber 
has  flowed  into  the  Rhine." 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  111 

A  promise  of  safe-conduct  had  accompanied  the  summons,  but 
notwithstanding,  some  of  Luther's  friends  sought  to  dissuade  him 
from  attempting  the  perilous  journey  to  Worms,  reminding  him 
of  the  fate  of  John  Huss,  who  was  burned  at  Constance  in  viola- 
tion of  the  safe-conduct  which  had  been  assured  to  him  by  the 
Emperor  Sigismund.  But  his  determination  was  unalterably 
taken,  and  from  the  first  intimation  of  a  summons  by  the  Emperor 
Luther  regarded  it  as  a  call  of  God  to  bear  witness  to  the  truth, 
and  declared  it  to  be  his  purpose  to  go  to  Worms  even  though  he 
should  be  taken  there  sick  and  at  the  risk  of  his  life.  Meeting  on 
the  way  repeated  admonitions  about  what  had  come  to  Huss  at 
Constance  in  1415,  Luther  responded,  "Though  they  should  kindle 
a  fire  all  the  way  from  Wittenberg  to  Worms,  the  flames  of 
which  should  reach  to  heaven,  I  would  still  appear  before  them  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord;  I  would  enter  the  jaws  of  this  behemoth 
confessing  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

The  journey  from  Wittenberg  to  Worms  was  a  triumphal  pro- 
cession, even  though  it  had  been  filled  with  the  apprehensions  of 
his  friends  and  the  threats  of  foes.  Along  the  way  he  had 
preached  and  received  a  popular  ovation.  One  of  the  priests  of 
the  Roman  Church  reported  that  "when  Luther  entered  a  city  the 
people  ran  to  meet  him ;  everybody  wanted  to  see  the  wonderful 
man  who  was  so  bold  as  to  oppose  himself  against  the  pope  and 
the  whole  world."  The  nearer  he  came  to  the  seat  of  the  diet  the 
more  were  attempts  made  by  the  Romanists  either  to  prevent  his 
coming,  or,  at  least,  to  delay  his  arrival  beyond  the  twenty-one 
days  of  his  safe-conduct.  To  the  messenger  who  was  sent  by 
Spalatin  with  the  advice  that  he  should  not  enter  the  city,  his 
answer  was  the  memorable  expression,  not  of  bluster,  but  of  his 
charasteristic  courage  and  trust  in  God:  "I  shall  go  to  Worms 
though  there  were  as  many  devils  there  as  there  are  tiles  on  the 
roofs." 

Escorted  by  his  friends  and  numbers  of  the  Saxon  noblemen, 
who  had  gone  out  to  meet  him,  Luther  arrived  at  Worms  on  Sun- 
day morning,  April  16th,  at  ten  o'clock,  preceded  by  the  imperial 
herald  and  followed  by  a  group  of  gentlemen  on  horseback.  As 
he  passed  through  the  city  so  great  was  the  crowd  that  pressed 
to  see  the  distinguished  heretic  that  it  was  necessary  to  conduct 
him  through  back  courts  to  the  house  of  the  Knights  of  St.  John, 
where  he  was  to  be  entertained  during  his  momentous  visit. 


112         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

On  the  day  after  his  arrival,  April  17th,  in  the  afternoon  at  four 
o'clock,  in  charge  of  the  imperial  marshal,  Luther  was  led  through 
circuitous  side  streets,  in  order  to  avoid  the  great  crowds,  to  the 
hall  of  the  diet  in  the  bishop's  palace,  where  were  assembled  the 
electors,  the  bishops,  the  reigning  princes  and  the  deputies  from 
the  free  cities  of  the  German  nation.  At  their  head  was  the 
young  emperor,  Charles  V,  who  was  twenty-one  years  of  age  the 
previous  February.  He  was  elevated  on  a  throne,  with  the  three 
ecclesiastical  electors  on  the  right,  the  three  secular  on  the  left, 
his  brother  Frederick  on  a  chair  of  state  below  the  throne,  and 
nobles,  knights  and  delegates  around,  the  papal  nuncio  being  in 
front.  Martin  Luther  was  now  thirty-seven  years  old.  He  was 
admitted  into  the  presence  of  this  famous  assembly  at  six  o'clock. 
But  few  contrasts  in  human  history  have  been  as  marked.  It 
was  that  of  a  solitary  monk,  a  lonely  hero  and  confessor,  slight  of 
figure,  pale  with  recent  illness  and  much  study,  with  thoughtful- 
ness  and  earnestness  finely  outlined  in  his  candid  German  face, 
facing  an  imposing  representation  of  the  highest  forces  in  Church 
and  State,  together  with  a  great  company  of  spectators  in  and 
around  the  building  and  in  the  streets,  anxiously  awaiting  the  issue ; 
one  man,  as  it  has  been  said,  "encircled  by  the  dark  flashing  line 
of  the  mailed  chivalry  of  Germany,"  facing  legates  of  the  pope, 
archbishops,  bishops,  dukes,  margraves,  princes,  counts,  deputies 
of  imperial  cities,  ambassadors  of  foreign  courts,  and  dignitaries 
of  every  rank. 

Some  thought  that  at  length  he  would  be  frightened,  and  would 
temporize.  But  he  showed  in  his  attitude  that  the  brave  heart  in 
his  former  strong  utterances  had  not  been  indulging  in  words  of 
empty  braggadocio.  Copies  of  the  various  books  which  he  had 
published  were  placed  before  him  in  the  hall  of  the  diet,  and  he 
was  asked  two  questions  with  reference  to  them — whether  he 
would  acknowledge  them  as  his  own,  and  whether  he  would 
recant  their  contents.  To  the  first  question,  as  to  authorship,  he 
replied  in  the  affirmative;  but  as  to  the  second  and  more  moment- 
ous question  of  recantation,  he  modestly  and  humbly  asked  fur- 
ther time  for  consideration,  inasmuch  as  the  gravity  of  the  issues 
involved  the  salvation  of  the  soul  and  the  truth  of  the  word  of 
God.  Luther  was  somewhat  overawed  by  the  great  assembly  he 
was  facing,  but  the  request  for  more  time  was  based,  not  upon  any 
failure  of  his  courage,  but  upon  a  profound  sense  of  his  responsi- 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  113 

bility.  He  was  granted  until  the  next  day  to  prepare  his  reply, 
and  when  that  day  came — the  greatest  day  in  the  reformer's  great 
career — all  signs  of  timidity  and  hesitation  had  vanished.  He 
had  taken  time  to  meditate  and  pray. 

It  is  well  nigh  impossible  for  people  of  this  age  to  conceive 
the  courage  which  the  task  faced  by  Luther  imposed.  The  ques- 
tion which  he  was  called  upon  to  answer  was  whether  or  not  he 
should  submit  to  the  judicial  decision  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
already  pronounced.  Could  he,  the  son  of  an  humble  miner, 
facing  the  world's  pomp  and  power,  maintain  his  independence? 
Was  he  sure  enough  of  himself  to  still  affirm  that  his  own  deep 
conviction  of  the  truth  of  God's  word  was  of  more  value  than  the 
declarations  of  the  great  representative  councils  of  Christendom, 
which  were  generally  believed  to  have  reflected  the  power  and 
guidance  of  the  Holy  Ghost?  He  stood  unshaken  in  his  cause. 
Being  taunted  with  dodging  the  questions  at  issue,  he  declared 
boldly  and  in  measured  words  which  expressed  his  profound  con- 
victions: "Since  your  imperial  majesty  wants  a  plain  answer,  I 
shall  give  you  a  plain  answer  without  horns  or  teeth.  Unless  I 
am  refuted  and  convinced  by  testimony  of  the  Scriptures,  I 
neither  can  nor  dare  retract  anything;  for  my  conscience  is  cap- 
tive to  God's  word,  and  it  is  neither  safe  nor  right  to  go  against 
conscience.  I  have  no  guide  but  the  Bible,  the  word  of  God. 
Here  I  stand.     I  cannot  do  otherwise.     God  help  me.     Amen." 

It  was  the  most  heroic  moment  of  his  courageous  life.  There 
had  appeared  a  man  who  knew  how  to  stand  and  be  counted  for 
the  truth,  and  in  the  face  of  the  powers  of  the  world.  His  stand 
marked  the  opening  of  a  freer,  brighter  and  better  age.  "Setting 
aside  the  scene  where  He,  whose  Name  is  above  every  name,  wit- 
nessed a  good  confession  before  Pontius  Pilate,"  says  Prof. 
Smith,  "I  know  of  no  scene  in  human  history  so  full  of  pathos 
and  power,  so  uplifting  and  grand  in  all  its  relations,  as  Luther, 
when  he  stood  before  the  Diet  of  Worms."  It  is,  say  Carlyle  and 
Froude,  the  finest  scene  in  modern  history.  "If  they  burn  you 
now,  they  burn  all  the  German  princes  with  you,"'  whispered  one 
of  his  friends  as  the  council  retired  to  consider.  The  diet  was  an 
assembly  before  which  Luther  could  not  have  hoped  actually  to 
win  his  cause.  The  emperor,  Charles  V,  with  his  inherited  Span- 
ish traditions,  fostered  by  his  education,  could  not  fairly  estimate 
and  understand  the  Reformer.    His  assertion  of  the  infallibility  of 


114         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

a  General  Council,  and  Luther's  idea  of  the  supremacy  of  the 
Sacred  Scriptures,  could  not  be  reconciled  by  any  kind  of  diplom- 
acy, however  sincere.  Says  Professor  Hausrath,  in  his  estimate 
of  Luther's  attitude  at  this  important  crisis  of  his  career:  "He 
penetrated  deeper  than  the  well-meaning  politicians.  The  errors 
in  doctrine  were  to  his  mind  inseparably  connected  with  the 
abuses  in  practice,  just  as  the  bad  root  with  the  foul  fruit.  If  he 
did  not  attack  the  former,  he  could  not  resist  the  latter.  From 
the  doctrine  of  purgatory  resulted  the  abuse  of  indulgences ;  from 
the  sacrament  of  priestly  ordination  followed  the  servitude  of  the 
laity;  the  erroneous  doctrine  of  justification  led  to  the  whole 
system  of  outward  works  and  rites,  which  choked  all  living  faith 
and  spiritual  life.  Just  because  he  saw  clearer  than  did  his  poli- 
tical patrons,  he  could  not  acquiesce  to  their  wishes,  and  conse- 
quently all  efforts  to  effect  a  compromise  were  doomed  to  failure 
at  the  outset." 

All  negotiations  now  having  failed  to  weaken  the  reformer's 
determination,  the  ban  of  the  empire  was  next  pronounced  against 
him.  On  the  19th  of  April  a  message  of  the  Emperor  was  read 
to  the  diet  in  which,  after  giving  his  guarantee  that  Luther  should 
have  a  safe-conduct  home,  he  said :  "I  am  determined  to  proceed 
against  him  as  a  manifest  heretic."  The  Elector  of  Brandenburg 
set  up  the  old  claim  that  faith  was  not  to  be  kept  with  a  heretic. 
But  he  was  promptly  told  that  if  Luther's  life  were  taken  there 
would  be  blood  for  blood.  So  popular  had  the  movement  for 
reform  become,  and  so  much  of  a  national  idol  the  Reformer,  that 
the  land  responded  with  the  opinion  that  if  he  was  harmed  there 
would  be  a  convulsion  which  would  overturn  all  authority.  He 
was  ordered  to  quit  Worms  on  April  26th,  his  safe-conduct  pro- 
tecting him  for  twenty-one  days,  and  no  longer.  At  the  end  of 
that  time  he  was  liable  to  be  seized  and  destroyed  as  a  pestilential 
heretic.  The  ban  under  which  he  was  placed  was  as  strong  and 
decisive  as  the  most  violent  of  the  papists  could  have  wished. 
After  describing  Luther  as  being  guilty  of  inciting  to  schism,  war, 
murder,  the  utter  ruin  of  the  Christian  faith,  and,  indeed,  as 
being  the  devil  himself  in  the  frock  of  a  monk,  the  ban  continued : 
"For  this  reason,  under  pain  of  incurring  the  penalties  due  to  the 
crime  of  high  treason,  we  forbid  you  to  harbor  the  said  Luther 
after  the  appointed  time  shall  be  expired,  to  conceal  him,  to  give 
him  food  or  drink,  or  to  furnish  him,  by  word  or  by  deed,  publicly 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  115 

or  secretly,  with  any  kind  of  succor  whatsoever.  We  enjoin 
you,  moreover,  to  seize  him,  or  to  cause  him  to  be  seized, 
wherever  you  may  find  him,  to  bring  him  before  us  without  any 
delay,  or  to  keep  him  in  safe  custody  until  you  have  learned  from 
us  in  what  manner  you  are  to  act  towards  him  and  have  received 
the  reward  due  to  your  labors  in  so  holy  a  work.  As  for  his 
adherents,  you  will  apprehend  them,  confine  them,  and  confiscate 
their  property.  His  writings  you  will  burn  or  utterly  destroy  in 
any  other  manner." 

So  ended  the  Diet  of  Worms.  The  papal  zealots  thought  that 
by  destroying  the  brave  monk  they  could  uproot  and  bring  to 
naught  his  work  and  teachings.  Outlawed  by  Church  and  State, 
condemned  by  the  Pope,  the  Emperor  and  the  universities,  cast 
out  from  society,  and  branded  as  an  insolent  and  irreverent  dis- 
turber of  the  Church,  who  had  dared  to  strike  at  the  most  time- 
honored  institutions  of  Christendom  and  had  set  himself  up  as  the 
judge  and  censor  of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church,  he  had,  never- 
theless, lit  an  inextinguishable  fire  of  religious  faith  and  hope  in 
Germany.  Branded  and  proscribed,  and  living  from  day  to  day 
in  the  constant  presence  of  death,  he  was  more  influential  than  all 
his  enemies.  His  name  was  already  famous  from  the  Baltic  to 
the  Swiss  lakes,  and  the  people  were  gladly  following  him  as  their 
leader  and  deliverer.  His  heroism  had  touched  ten  thousand 
hearts,  and  the  movement  now  inseparable  from  his  name  and 
teachings  had  well-nigh  ceased  to  need  his  advocacy. 

Never  since  the  days  of  the  martyrs  and  the  apostles  had  the 
right  of  private  judgment  been  so  generally  asserted  and  the 
apostolic  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  conscience  been  so  distinctly 
reaffirmed.  The  Lutheran  revolt  had  been  merged  into  opposi- 
tion to  Rome.  In  the  case  of  the  ban  issued  by  the  diet,  for  the 
last  time  the  empire  had  recognized  its  obligation  to  carry  out 
the  decrees  of  the  alleged  successor  of  St.  Peter  fulminating 
from  his  palace  on  the  Tiber.  Hutten  cried :  "I  am  becoming 
ashamed  of  my  fatherland.''  So  general  was  the  disapproval  of 
the  edict  that  few  were  willing  to  pay  any  attention  to  it. 

In  his  interpretation  of  the  stand  made  by  Luther  at  Worms, 
Dr.  Schaff  says  that  "Luther's  testimony  before  the  diet  is  an 
event  of  world  historical  importance  and  far-reaching  effect.  It 
opened  an  intellectual  conflict  which  is  still  going  on  in  the  civ- 
ilized world.     He  stood  there  as  the  fearless  champion  of  the 


116         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

supremacy  of  the  word  of  God  over  the  traditions  of  men,  and 
of  the  liberty  of  conscience  over  the  tyranny  of  authority.  For 
this  liberty  all  Protestant  Christians,  who  enjoy  the  fruit  of  his 
courage,  owe  him  a  debt  of  gratitude."  Interpreting  the  same 
great  event,  Bishop  Creighton  says  that  "In  the  records  of  human 
heroism  Luther's  appearance  before  the  Diet  of  Worms  must 
always  rank  high.  The  man  is  worthy  of  admiration,  who,  rather 
than  tamper  with  the  integrity  of  his  conscience,  commits  himself 
boldly  to  an  unknown  future,  trusting  only  to  the  help  of  God. 
Luther  had  worked  out  his  own  principles,  and  he  maintained 
them  in  their  full  extent.  He  knew  well  enough  the  motives  of 
policy  which  made  his  action  unwise ;  but  he  did  not  shrink  from 
facing  the  exact  issue.  He  boldly  stated  that  religion  was  a  mat- 
ter of  the  individual  conscience,  taught  only  by  the  Scriptures; 
and  that  no  human  authority  could  devise  any  other  sanction. 
He  knew  that  by  this  avowal  he  gave  himself  into  the  hands  of  his 
enemies ;  he  knew  that  he  disappointed  the  schemes  of  purely 
political  partisans ;  but  regardless  of  all  else,  he  spoke  out  the 
'ruth  which  he  believed." 

VI 

But  the  issuing  of  an  edict  and  the  burning  of  books  was  not 
the  end  of  the  troublesome  scholar  and  monk.  Providence  did 
not  design  that  even  upon  his  person  should  the  edict  be  fulfilled. 
When  Luther  was  returning  from  Worms  to  Wittenberg,  and 
before  the  publication  of  the  ban  against  him,  a  troop  of  knights, 
disguised,  fell  upon  him,  and  scattering  his  attendants,  carried 
him  away  into  the  Thuringian  forest  and  placed  him  in  the  Wart- 
burg,  the  strongest  of  all  the  Elector's  castles,  the  ancient  home 
of  St.  Elizabeth  of  Hungary,  located  on  the  heights  overlooking 
the  beautiful  Eisenach  of  his  school  days.  Here  he  lived  for  ten 
months  away  from  the  rage  of  his  enemies,  by  whom  it  was  feared 
he  might  be  taken  and  put  to  death.  Here  he  was  known  as 
"Junker  George,"  the  title  given  him  by  the  jovial  knights.  To 
the  Reformer  and  the  cause  for  which  he  was  now  standing  this 
Wartburg  exile  was  profitable.  After  the  busy  whirl  and  violent 
commotion  in  which  so  much  of  his  life  for  four  years  had  been 
passed,  and  especially  after  the  popular  exaltation  that  had  been 
accorded  him  after  his  public  appearance  before  the  illustrious 
gathering  at  Worms,  he  required  solitude  and  retirement  to  regain 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  117 

balance  and  poise,  and  to  store  up  in  his  soul  those  supplies  of 
divine  grace  and  strength  he  needed  for  the  coming  days  of  his 
great  conflict.  He  felt  that  he  was  a  "strange  prisoner,  a  captive 
with  and  against  my  will." 

But  he  was  at  this  charming  place  tremendously  active.  To  a 
friend  he  wrote:  "I  am  reading  the  Bible  in  Hebrew  and  Greek; 
I  am  going  to  write  a  treatise  in  German  on  auricular  confession  ; 
I  shall  continue  the  translation  of  the  Psalms,  and  compose  a 
volume  of  sermons  so  soon  as  I  receive  what  I  want  from  Wit- 
tenberg. I  am  writing  without  intermission."  During  this  period 
of  tranquillity  and  solitude  there  issued  from  his  pen  in  rapid  suc- 
cession a  variety  of  writings.  At  Wittenberg  the  commanding 
voice  was  silent,  but  the  pen  at  the  Wartburg  was  diligent.  "For 
nearly  a  whole  year,"  says  an  historian,  "he  by  turns  instructed, 
exhorted,  reproved  and  thundered  from  his  mountain  retreat ;  and 
his  amazed  adversaries  asked  one  another  if  there  was  not  some- 
thing supernatural,  some  mystery,  in  this  prodigious  activity." 
Interpreting  the  Wartburg  experience  and  withdrawal,  D'Aubigne 
says:  "Here  God  had  been  pleased  to  conduct  Martin  Luther  to 
a  place  of  repose  and  peace.  After  having  exhibited  him  on  the 
brilliant  theater  of  Worms,  where  all  the  powers  of  the  Re- 
former's soul  had  been  strung  to  so  high  a  pitch,  he  gave  him  the 
secluded  and  humiliating  retreat  of  a  prison.  God  draws  from 
the  deepest  seclusion  the  weak  instruments  by  which  he  purposes 
to  accomplish  great  things ;  and  then,  when  he  has  permitted 
them  to  glitter  for  a  season  with  dazzling  brilliancy  on  an  illus- 
trious stage,  he  dismisses  them  again  to  the  deepest  obscurity. 
*  *  *  It  was  requisite  that  this  great  individual  should  fade 
away,  in  order  that  the  revolution  then  accomplishing  might  not 
bear  the  stamp  of  an  individual.  It  was  necessary  for  the  man 
to  retire,  that  God  might  remain  alone  to  move  by  His  Spirit  upon 
the  deep  waters  of  medieval  darkness  and  to  say,  'Let  there  be 
light,'  so  that  there  might  be  light." 

It  was  here  that  the  industrious  Reformer  did  his  greatest  and 
most  constructive  service  for  the  German  people  and  the  world, 
in  the  translation  of  the  Scriptures.  Here  were  laid  permanently 
the  foundations  of  Evangelical  Christianity,  for  from  this  castle 
and  the  seclusion  of  its  friendly  imprisonment,  first  in  modern 
times,  there  went  forth  the  gospel  in  the  language  of  the  people. 
Here  Luther  provided  the  strongest  weapon  of  German  Protest- 


118         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

antism,  through  the  pages  of  which  God  spoke  anew  to  men  in  the 
modern  age.  From  this  place  there  went  forth  the  message  of 
Hebrew  prophets  and  the  recorded  words  of  Jesus  Himself  which 
had  aforetime  been  spoken  to  the  people  of  Galilee  and  Judea. 
From  here  went  forth  that  word  of  God  from  which  men  were 
once  more  to  learn  the  truth  that  it  was  not  by  means  of  monastic 
self-righteousness  and  impositions,  nor  through  the  ministrations 
of  an  exclusive  priestly  class,  that  man  might  become  reconciled 
to  God,  but  through  that  faith  which  an  apostle  declares  to  be  the 
gift  of  God.  Thence,  also,  went  forth  some  of  the  Reformer's 
keenest  controversial  writings,  but  chiefest  of  all,  that  peculiar 
biblical  inspiration  which  established  the  language  of  a  great 
people,  gave  them  a  word  of  authority  that  was  supreme  and 
final,  started  a  varied  literature,  and  struck  so  deep  into  the 
German  intellect  that  even  the  ban  of  Duke  George  of  Saxony 
was  but  a  ripple  on  the  stream  of  its  national  influence.  "Martin 
Luther,"  says  Professor  Wilkinson,  "is  the  founder  of  German 
literary  history.  German  literature  dates  its  commencement 
from  the  moment  at  which  Luther's  noble  translation  of  the  Bible 
into  his  own  mother  tongue  was  first  given  to  Germany.  Above 
everything  else  that  proceeded  from  Luther's  pen  towers  his 
translation  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  Scriptures.  It  has 
for  nearly  four  centuries  been  to  the  German-speaking  peoples  all 
that  the  King  James'  translation  since  the  latter  was  given  to  the 
world  has  been  to  the  peoples  who  speak  English." 

His  work  here  became  the  anticipation  of  the  coming  populari- 
zation of  the  Scriptures  in  other  lands  and  other  languages.  In 
England,  for  example,  the  effect  of  the  circulation  of  the  Bible  in 
the  language  of  the  people  was  the  same  as  in  Germany.  "No 
greater  moral  change,"  says  Green  in  his  Short  History  of  the 
English  People,  "ever  passed  over  a  nation  than  passed  over  Eng- 
land during  the  years  which  parted  the  middle  of  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth  from  the  meeting  of  the  Long  Parliament.  England 
became  the  people  of  a  book,  and  that  book  was  the  Bible.  It 
was  as  yet  the  one  English  book  which  was  familiar  to  every 
Englishman ;  it  was  read  at  churches  and  read  at  home,  and 
everywhere  its  words,  as  they  fell  on  ears  which  custom  had  not 
deadened  to  their  force  and  beauty,  kindled  a  startling 
enthusiasm." 

Luther's  sojourn  in  this  "Patmos,"  as  he  styled  the  Wartburg, 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  119 

marked  the  opening  of  a  more  constructive  period  in  his  career 
than  that  which  culminated  in  his  appearance  before  the  diet, 
though  its  underlying  principles  remained  the  same.  History 
does  not  record  a  grander  scene  or  a  bolder  act  than  Luther's  ap- 
pearance at  Worms.  There  he  fought  the  tyranny  which  the 
Church  exercised  over  the  consciences  of  believers,  and  routed 
the  papal  marplots  who  contended  for  the  bondage  of  the  human 
judgment.  But  at  the  Wartburg  he  attained  his  greatest  literary 
achievement.  Books  of  devotion,  controversial  writings,  tracts 
for  the  times,  sermons  and  letters,  issued  in  quick  succession. 
Add  to  these  his  three  treatises  on  "Private  Confession,"  on  the 
"Abuse  of  Private  Masses,"  and  on  "Monastic  Vows,"  besides  his 
commentaries  and  epistles,  and  his  self -accusation  of  laziness  ap- 
pears as  a  somewhat  strange  autobiographical  statement  and  con- 
fession. Here  in  his  translation  of  the  New  Testament  he  gave 
to  the  world,  in  the  language  of  the  common  people,  that  which 
really  makes  men  free  and  independent  of  human  authority,  pro- 
viding an  authority  in  the  Bible,  illumined  by  the  Holy  Spirit  and 
by  sane  grammatical  interpretation.  He  here  provided  for  his 
people  that  which  they  read  and  loved,  which  not  only  dominated 
and  directed  their  religious  and  moral  convictions,  but  which, 
more  than  anything  else,  influenced  their  mode  of  thinking  and 
manner  of  expression. 

The  years  that  succeeded  were  busy  with  manifold  tasks  and 
responsibilities.  Luther  set  himself  to  the  work  of  purifying  the 
service  of  the  Church,  to  composing  hymns  for  the  use  of  the 
people,  which  were  received  by  them  with  unbounded  enthusiasm, 
and  which,  sung  everywhere,  in  church,  school  and  home,  greatly 
forwarded  the  good  fight  of  the  Reformation.  In  the  matter  of 
popular  education,  also,  the  Reformer's  influence  was  widely  felt. 
Realizing  that  ignorance  was  the  blight  of  the  land,  and  that  in 
consequence  of  it  the  people  were  kept  in  papal  bondage,  he  urged 
upon  the  magistrates  and  mayors  of  Germany  the  duty  of  main- 
taining schools  for  the  education  of  the  young.  To  remedy  the 
appalling  religious  ignorance  that  prevailed,  he  published  his 
Small  Catechism,  which,  in  its  simple  presentation  of  gospel 
truth  and  strong,  childlike  faith,  stands  even  to  this  day  without  a 
parallel  of  its  kind  in  the  literature  of  the  Christian  world.  At 
no  time  in  all  the  years  of  his  busy  life  did  Luther  ambitiously 
start  out  to  do  some  great  things,  but  at  every  time  of  crisis  and 


120         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

opportunity  he  faithfully  responded  to  God's  call  to  duty  as  it 
came  to  him,  and  the  great  Reformation,  with  its  restoration  of 
the  pure  Gospel,  was  the  far-reaching  result. 

Until  his  death  in  1546,  along  with  his  coadjutor  and  comple- 
ment, the  younger,  gentler,  more  learned  but  less  heroic  Me- 
lanchthon,  Luther  guided  the  course  of  German  Protestantism 
amid  external  opposition  and  internal  controversy ;  while  directly 
or  indirectly  he  also  stimulated  the  progress  of  the  Reformation 
throughout  Christendom. 

While  engaged  in  his  literary  labors  at  the  Wartburg,  unpleas- 
ant reports  reached  him  about  extravagant  and  fanatical  tend- 
encies that  were  beginning  to  manifest  themselves  at  Witten- 
berg. Carlstadt  and  some  others,  uncontrolled  by  the  master 
spirit  of  Luther,  began  to  carry  out  to  its  natural  consequences 
the  mere  spirit  of  negation  involved  in  some  phases  of  the  move- 
ment. The  popular  mind,  aroused  to  a  sense  of  the  deception 
which  had  been  practiced  upon  it  for  centuries,  began  now  to 
break  out  into  extreme  expressions  of  hostility  against  the  medie- 
val church  system  in  its  forms  as  well  as  its  doctrines.  Icono- 
clasm  was  engaged  in  its  destructive  work.  Schoolmasters  dis- 
missed their  scholars,  the  university  learning  was  disparaged,  and 
Wittenberg  was  rapidly  sinking  into  the  abode  of  fanatics.  Leav- 
ing the  Wartburg  in  March,,  1522,  against  the  remonstrances  of 
his  friends,  Luther  hastened  back  to  Wittenberg,  where,  resuming 
his  place  in  the  pulpit,  for  eight  successive  days  he  reasoned  with 
the  people  out  of  the  Scriptures.  On  the  first  Sunday  after  his 
return  he  delivered  his  opinion  on  the  principles  which  should 
guide  them  in  the  great  religious  changes  through  which  they 
were  passing.  He  preached  about  the  reality  of  sin  and  salva- 
tion, the  necessity  of  faith  and  love ;  these,  said  he,  being  the  main 
things  to  be  concerned  about,  and  not  mere  novelties  or  changes 
for  their  own  sake.  Earnestness  of  principle  and  moderation  in 
practice  were  the  keynotes  of  this  remarkable  series  of  sermons, 
listened  to  by  crowds  from  day  to  day.  He  besought  them  to  ab- 
stain from  asserting  their  new-found  liberty  by  rashly  overturning 
all  that  had  hitherto  maintained  in  the  Church.  He  admonished 
them  from  the  Scriptures  against  that  precipitate  enthusiasm  which 
menaced  the  existing  social  order.  They  listened  to  his  message 
and  common  sense,  the  positive  statement  of  the  truth  in  love 
proving  to  be  the  best  refutation  of  error.     Order  was  restored 


1 

l^HIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  121 

at  the  seat  of  the  new  movement  and  radicalism  checked.  His 
escape  from  his  retreat  at  the  Wartburg  was  at  the  risk  of  his 
life.  Duke  Frederick  had  warned  him  not  to  expose  himself. 
Duke  George  of  Leipzic  might  seize  him.  "But,"  said  Luther, 
"I'll  go  if  it  rains  Duke  Georges  for  nine  days."  Casting  himself 
upon  the  divine  protection,  he  went  back  to  Wittenberg,  welcomed 
by  the  people,  who  thought  that  he  never  would  return.  The 
restoration  of  order,  the  expulsion  of  the  heavenly  prophets,  the 
installation  of  sane  principles  in  the  direction  of  worship  and 
ecclesiastical  administration,  all  combined  to  justify  both  his  faith 
and  his  courage.  His  popular  eloquence,  his  zeal,  his  courage  and 
capacity  for  leadership,  were  never  more  urgently  needed,  and 
never  more  clearly  manifest.  "In  sovereign  sway  and  master- 
dom"  there  was  not  his  equal  among  the  people.  They  were 
aware  that  there  was  but  one  man  among  them  who  was  strong 
enough  to  check  the  rising  tide  of  fanaticism  and  the  oncoming 
and  dreaded  revolutionary  movements,  and  that  man  was  Martin 
Luther. 

In  the  subsequent  days  of  the  great  Reformer's  life  there  was 
no  abatement  in  his  fidelity  to  his  divinely  imposed  tasks,  his 
courage  in  conducting  the  good  fight  of  the  new  movement,  or  of 
his  industry  in  the  constructive  work  made  necessary  by  the  suc- 
cessive stages  of  its  development.  A  large  number  of  treatises 
on  different  religious  subjects  followed  in  rapid  succession. 
Meanwhile,  Luther's  cause  continued  to  gain  new  adherents  and 
its  influence  to  spread.  In  the  fall  of  1522  the  Emperor's 
brother,  Ferdinand,  who  succeeded  him  on  the  imperial  throne, 
wrote :  "The  cause  of  Luther  is  so  rooted  in  the  whole  empire 
that  among  a  thousand  persons  today  not  one  is  free  from  it." 
In  the  years  from  June,  1522  to  1525,  the  Lutheran  teaching  was 
accepted  by  Albert,  the  Grand  Master  of  the  Teutonic  Order,  who 
transformed  his  dominions  into  a  grand  duchy,  the  beginning  of 
the  kingdom  of  Prussia,  while  the  bishops  of  Samland  and 
Livonia  accepted  the  same  faith.  Distinguished  German  noble- 
men and  cities  espoused  Luther's  cause  and  called  evangelical 
ministers,  among  them  being  the  cities  of  Zwickau,  Altenburg, 
Eisenach,  Magdeburg,  Frankfort,  Nuremberg,  Ulm,  Strassburg 
and  Bremen.  The  evangelical  cause  made  progress  in  Dantzic, 
Sweden  and  Denmark.  During  all  of  this  external  growth  the 
Reformer  was  engaged  in  controversy,  planting,  building  and  re- 


122         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

construction,  in  a  period  marked  by  transitions  and  changing 
conditions. 

The  Lutheran  Reformation  in  religion,  we  are  always  to  re- 
member, was  by  no  means  an  isolated  phenomenon  in  one  separate 
sphere.  The  rising  spirit  of  nationalism  was  more  and  more  tak- 
ing on  definite  form.  The  old  feudal  system  of  the  Middle 
Ages  was  slowly  giving  away  to  a  new  social  structure,  and  the 
common  people  were  more  and  more  coming  into  prominence  as 
compared  with  the  princely  classes.  The  accumulation  of  wealth 
in  the  hands  of  a  few  brought  about  a  more  luxurious  mode  of 
living.  Hitherto  unknown  luxuries  were  imported  and  ostenta- 
tiously displayed  by  the  wives  and  daughters  of  wealthy  burghers. 
There  was  also  a  wide  and  growing  dissatisfaction  among  the 
peasants  and  laborers,  who  were  looking  for  an  opportunity  to 
arise  and  shake  off  the  oppressive  yoke  of  feudalism  and  of  land 
servitude.  Their  position  had  become  well  nigh  unbearable,  and 
repeatedly  they  had  risen  in  revolt.  In  the  years  1476,  1491,  1498 
and  1503  they  had  rebelled  against  their  rulers,  but  had  been  over- 
come, and  were  kept  in  suppression  only  by  use  of  violent  means. 
The  princes  became  more  and  more  overbearing  in  their  attitude 
toward  the  peasants,  and  the  knights  became  more  and  more  op- 
pressive. The  religious  radicalism  at  Wittenberg  which  had  been 
restrained  by  Luther  became  the  prelude  of  a  more  dangerous 
radicalism  in  civil  and  social  life,  which  involved  the  land  in  riot, 
confusion  and  bloodshed.  In  the  present  religious  convulsion  the 
peasantry  saw  another  opportunity  for  revolt.  A  league  was 
formed  in  1514;  by  1524  the  insurrection  broke  out  publicly,  and 
by  the  spring  of  1525  it  was  general.  The  movement  had  its 
roots  in  crying  abuses,  and  unquestionably  received  a  strong  im- 
petus from  the  Reformation,  its  advocates  claiming  to  be  carrying 
out  its  principles  to  their  logical  consequences.  If,  men  said,  they 
are  made  free  by  Christ,  and  purchased  by  His  blood,  why  should 
they  be  the  bond-servants  of  men?  If  God's  word  is  to  be  the 
supreme  authority  in  religious  matters,  why  not  in  civil  matters 
as  well?  If  the  claims  of  the  pope  and  the  priests  were  to  be 
rejected  because  they  were  unscriptural,  why  should  the  unjust 
demands  of  secular  princes  be  obeyed  ? 

The  peasants  were  largely  sympathetic  with  the  Protestant 
movement,  and  pleaded  the  Bible  as  their  justification  in  demand- 
ing liberty  of  conscience  and  freedom  from  civil  oppression.     The 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  123 

work  and  influence  of  Luther  had  come  to  a  critical  juncture. 
He  had  claimed  a  holy  liberty  for  Christians,  but  these  men  were 
perverting  it  into  a  most  unholy  and  dangerous  license.  They 
mistook  spiritual  liberty  for  carnal  freedom.  The  great  leader 
of  his  people  and  reformer  of  the  Church  was  now  put  upon  trial 
in  a  new  direction.  The  unrest  of  the  oppressed  peasants  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  reformation  of  religion,  nor  did  Luther's 
teachings  in  any  way  occasion  it.  It  is  not  surprising,  however, 
that  the  peasants  saw  in  the  new  religious  order  the  coming  remedy 
for  their  ancient  wrongs,  or  that  his  enemies  should  take  advan- 
tage of  the  deplorable  situation  to  maintain  that  this  was  what 
came  of  his  teaching.  But  the  charge  that  he  was  to  blame  for 
the  cruelties  committed  upon  the  peasants  by  their  captors,  and 
that  his  teaching  had  incited  their  awful  insurrection,  was  unjust 
and  absurd.  He  had  severely  reproved  the  victorious  company  of 
the  nobles  for  their  cruelty  against  the  peasants,  but  had  not  in- 
cited the  peasants  to  violent  revolution  and  rebellion  against  the 
powers  that  be.  He  had  shown  that  they  were  oppressed  by  the 
exactions  of  Rome,  but  when  they  revolted  against  all  authority 
and  rebelled  against  all  exactions,  he  exhorted  even  their  op- 
pressors to  cut  them  down.  He  had  encouraged  the  peasants  to 
press  their  claims,  but  had  charged  them  to  do  so  with  modera- 
tion and  obedience  to  duly  constituted  authority.  But  when  he 
had  heard  of  unspeakable  atrocities,  saw  the  smoke  of  burning 
castles  and  villages,  and  beheld  the  drunken  and  ferocious  mob 
nearing  Wittenberg,  his  indignation  was  aroused  and  he  burst  out 
in  a  violent  manifesto  against  the  "rapacious  and  murdering  peas- 
ants." When  they  took  to  plundering  monasteries,  murdering 
the  nobles  and  playing  reckless  havoc,  he  could  endure  no  longer 
with  patience.  He  studied  the  matter  closely,  and  then  took  the 
side  of  law  and  order. 

No  act  in  Luther's  life  has  been  more  severely  criticised,  and 
it  had  a  bad  effect  on  the  Reformer  himself  and  on  his  work.  It 
modified  his  confidence  in  the  people  and  his  own  capacity  to  con- 
trol them.  He  was  unjustly  held  responsible  for  the  ruined 
castles,  the  devastated  fields,  the  ravaged  villages,  and  all  the  un- 
told suffering  that  ensued  from  his  deplorable  reign  of  lawless- 
ness. Even  Erasmus  wrote :  "Here  you  see  the  fruits  of  your 
spirit."  The  princes  accused  him  for  having  incited  the  peas- 
ants, and  the  peasants  reproached  him  for  having  forsaken  them 


124         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

in  their  day  of  distress.  The  cause  of  the  Reformation  suffered 
great  injury,  and  was  at  once  made  responsible  by  the  Romanists 
for  all  the  horrors  that  had  come  upon  the  land.  Much  as  he 
lamented  the  results  of  the  lawless  uprising,  Luther  never  re- 
pented of  having  acted  as  he  did  in  roundly  denouncing  the 
princes  for  their  exactions  and  counseling  the  peasant  to  be  obedi- 
ent to  their  government.  The  voice  of  history  has  spoken  out  in 
justification  of  the  Reformer's  course  in  this  time  of  calamity  to 
his  people  and  trial  to  himself.  It  has  been  said  by  a  well- 
accredited  historian:  "But  the  calm-minded  Luther  was  wiser 
than  the  fanatic  multitudes.  With  heavy  heart  he  took  sides 
against  them.  He  saw  clearly  enough  that  all  hope  of  success  in 
an  effort  for  religious  reform  would  be  jeopardized  if  the  cause 
should  be  yoked  with  the  schemes  of  Munzer."  "The  real  great- 
ness of  the  Reformer  appeared  in  the  transaction;  for  he  used  his 
influence  with  the  nobles  of  the  revolted  districts  to  save  the  peas- 
ants  from  punishment." 

VII 

It  was  during  the  Peasants'  War,  on  June  13,  1525,  that  Luther 
was  married  to  Catherine  von  Bora,  an  escaped  nun  from  the 
cloister  located  near  Grimma,  in  Saxony.  The  ex-friar  at  this 
time  was  in  his  forty-second  year  and  the  ex-nun  twenty-six. 
Luther  was  glad  rather  than  otherwise  when  his  enemies  de- 
nounced his  conduct,  and  his  friends  never  moved  him  from  what 
he  believed  to  be  his  duty,  entered  upon  in  defiance  of  the  teach- 
ing of  the  medieval  Church,  but  in  entire  harmony  with  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Scriptures.  By  his  marriage  the  Reformer  protested 
against  the  unnaturalness  of  the  monastic  ideal  of  withdrawal 
from  life  and  the  ascetic  hatred  of  the  world.  Of  this  important 
event  in  his  life  Gustav  Freytag  says :  "From  that  time  the  hus- 
band, the  father,  the  citizen,  became  likewise  the  reformer  of  the 
domestic  life  of  his  nation,  a  pattern  for  filial  reverence,  marriage, 
the  training  of  children,  as  well  as  for  social  family  life — the  very 
blessings  of  this  life  on  earth,  of  which  Protestants  and  Catholics 
may  alike  partake,  have  sprung  from  Luther's  marriage." 

In  1529  Luther  prepared  his  two  Catechisms,  which  grew  out 
of  the  Saxon  Church  visitations,  from  which  he  returned  greatly 
depressed  because  of  his  observations  of  the  ignorance  of  the 
people    of    the    most    rudimentary    teachings    of    the    Christian 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  125 

religion.  These  manuals,  intended  to  correct  the  evils  of  igno- 
rance and  irreligion,  soon  became  symbolical  standards  of  doctrine 
and  Church  teaching  wherever  the  Lutheran  Church  had  extended 
its  borders.  In  the  same  year  he  participated  in  the  famous 
Marburg  colloquy,  where  he  planted  himself  down  squarely  upon 
the  plain  statement  of  the  divine  word,  plainly  construed,  in  con- 
trast with  the  rationalizing  method  of  interpreting  the  Scriptures 
employed  by  Zwingli,  insisting  upon  the  doctrine  that  the  true 
body  and  blood  of  Christ  are  received  by  the  partakers  of  the 
Lord's  Supper,  in  and  together  with  the  bread  and  wine. 

In  1530  we  find  the  Reformer  at  the  Coburg  Castle  during  the 
Augsburg  Diet,  from  which  place  he  kept  up  continual  corre- 
spondence with  Melanchthon,  the  scholarly  "preceptor  of  Ger- 
many," who  sought  in  the  memorable  confession  presented  there 
to  set  forth  the  evangelical  doctrines  in  elegant  and  vigorous  Ger- 
man and  in  agreement  with  the  orthodox  doctrines  of  the  one 
Holy  Christian  Church.  In  that  great  confessional  document  the 
conciliatory  spirit  and  theological  acumen  of  Melanchthon  are 
discovered  in  every  line,  and  of  which  Prof.  George  P.  Fisher 
says  that  it  "has  obtained  more  currency  and  respect  than  any 
other  Protestant  symbol."  In  1534  he  published  the  entire  Bible  in 
German.  In  1537,  in  the  first  month  of  the  year,  he  drew  up  and 
published  the  Smalcald  Articles,  a  clear,  concise  and  forcible  pro- 
test of  the  new  movement  against  all  the  abominations  of  the 
papacy  and  its  manifold  departures  from  the  simplicity  that  is  in 
Christ.  For  the  fifteen  or  sixteen  years  that  followed  the  Diet 
at  Augsburg  the  relation  of  the  Emperor  Charles  V  to  the  Prot- 
estants of  Germany  was  largely  that  of  political  maneuvering, 
the  Emperor  being  restrained  by  the  difficulties  of  his  position 
from  any  decisive  steps  toward  the  repression  of  the  movement. 
The  Reformation  cause,  however,  during  all  this  time  was  con- 
stantly adding  to  its  allies,  and  by  the  year  1540  counted  nearly 
the  whole  of  northern  Germany  on  its  side. 

In  January,  1546,  Luther  went  to  Eisleben,  the  place  of  his 
birth,  to  restore  ~peace  between  the  counts  of  Mans f eld,  who 
were  in  a  state  of  dispute  about  certain  privileges,  rights  and 
revenues.  Having  contracted  a  severe  cold  on  the  journey,  he 
was  taken  sick  and  died  where  he  was  born,  on  February  18, 
1546,  in  the  sixty- third  year  of  his  age.  His  departure  was  in 
peace  and  unshaken  faith,  among  his  last  words  being  the  thrice 


126         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

repeated  sentence,  "Father  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit. 
Thou  hast  redeemed  me,  Thou  faithful  God." 

So  ended  the  stormy  but  permanently  influential  life  of  the 
Reformer ;  so  passed  to  his  reward  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  his- 
tory. The  faithful  laborer  had  come  to  his  well-earned  rest  and 
the  victor  to  his  crown.  His  body,  worn  out  with  excess  of 
labors,  was  carried  back  to  Wittenberg,  where  it  was  laid  to  rest 
in  the  Castle  Church,  upon  the  door  of  which  he  had  nailed  the 
theses  twenty-nine  years  before,  inaugurating  the  most  important 
and  vitalizing  movement  of  the  modern  age.  "By  his  word  and 
his  pen  alone,"  says  Prof.  Hausrath,  "he  had  wrung  Germany 
from  the  mighty  Emperor  on  whose  empire  the  'sun  never  set.' 
The  professor  whose  salary  was  never  more  than  five  hundred 
florins  a  year  had  bought  out  the  owner  of  the  whole  treasure  of 
all  the  indulgences.  Victor  over  Emperor  and  pope  he  died." 
Luther  had  been  transferred  from  the  earthly  scene  of  his 
abundant  labors,  but  dead  he  was  not.  To  the  Elector,  Myconius, 
he  wrote  these  words,  which  are  being  fulfilled  even  now :  "This 
Dr.  Martin  Luther  is  not  dead  at  all ;  he  will  not  die,  he  cannot 
die.     Now  he  will  be  alive  more  than  ever  before." 

There  are  historical  figures  who  have  dwindled  with  the  lapse 
of  time.  In  their  own  day  and  place  they  seemed  destined  to  an 
immortality  of  fame  and  influence.  There  are  other  figures  that 
pass  the  way  of  all  the  earth,  but  keep  on  growing  in  impressive- 
ness  as  the  years  go  by.  They  were  recognized  as  heroes  while 
they  lived,  but  the  full  measure  of  their  greatness  was  not  then 
discerned.  To  this  latter  class  Luther  has  been  deservedly  as- 
signed by  the  most  competent  of  interpreters.  The  more  fully 
the  world  comes  to  understand  the  benefits  of  the  enduring  prin- 
ciples which  he  affirmed  and  for  which  he  contended  in  the  day 
of  battle,  the  more  is  the  estimate  of  his  greatness  augmented  and 
his  name  venerated. 

It  is  not  always  an  easy  task  to  estimate  the  forces  by  means  of 
which  men  of  Luther's  order  come  to  such  splendid  success  and 
reach  conclusions  so  audacious  for  the  age  in  which  they  lived 
and  wrought.  That  is  a  problem  which  the  philosophers  of  his- 
tory have  never  yet  solved.  At  this  quadri-centennial  of  the 
inauguration  of  the  Lutheran  movement  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
could  old  John  Trebonius,  the  schoolmaster  of  the  olden  times, 
rise  from  his  grave  and  contemplate  the  worked-out  results  of  one 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  127 

of  his  schoolboy's  achievements  in  the  earth,  he  would  have  even 
more  confidence  in  the  modest  wisdom  of  lifting  his  hat  to  the 
youth  committed  to  his  tutelage.  Coming  forth  from  that  ob- 
scurity which  is  constantly  surprising  men  by  its  contributions  to 
the  world's  leadership,  by  the  munificence  and  magnitude  of  its 
gifts  to  lofty  achievement,  this  man,  one  of  the  greatest  among 
historic  names,  assumed  wondrous  charges,  accomplished  per- 
manent results,  and  then  left  the  world  in  amazement.  When  he 
passed  away  at  the  age  of  sixty-two  years,  three  months  and  eight 
days,  there  had  dawned  in  consequence  of  his  life  the  new  age  of 
Christendom.  Resolute  and  fearless,  he  flung  back  the  gates 
which  one  hundred  years  before  had  successfully  resisted  John 
Huss,  and  through  those  gates  men  are  walking  to  this  day  in  the 
liberty  of  the  sons  of  God  and  the  enjoyment  of  that  civil  freedom 
which  has  marked  the  enfranchisement  of  the  leading  peoples  of 
the  earth. 

If  Italy  rightly  claims  the  priority  in  the  revival  of  learning, 
to  the  Germany  of  Luther's  day  of  right  belongs  the  first  place  in 
the  real  work  of  the  Reformation,  and  that  priority  it  is  not 
difficult  to  explain.  The  opportunity  of  that  land  when  Luther 
came  to  his  work  was  the  result  of  a  combination  of  many  condi- 
tions. To  that  land  there  had  first  of  all  been  transmitted  from 
Italy  the  quickening  impulse  of  the  intellectual  awakening  of  the 
Renaissance,  which,  turning  at  once  into  the  channels  of  practical 
activity  and  religious  seriousness,  did  much  to  hasten  reformation 
in  the  sphere  of  Christian  thinking,  reorganization  and  restate- 
ment of  beliefs.  That  country,  too,  was  in  a  state  of  social  dis- 
content and  rising  assertion  of  nationalism.  For  its  rulers,  who 
might  themselves  be  Englishmen  or  Spaniards,  the  land  was  only 
a  huge  farm  from  which  to  reap  revenues  for  fighting  dynastic 
wars  and  enlarging  the  resources  of  the  pope.  All  those  social 
forces  which  were  finally  to  break  the  notorious  and  age-long 
dominion  of  the  medieval  Church  were  at  hand.  There  was  only 
needed  the  man  who  could  so  interpret  those  forces  as  to  cause 
the  land  to  be  conscious  of  their  strength,  and  tie  them  up  with 
what  was  the  most  fundamental  need  of  the  people,  a  revival  of 
personal  religion.  There  were  the  increasing  industrial  independ- 
ence and  the  emergence  of  the  middle  class,  the  new  learning 
and  the  spirit  for  exploration  by  the  highways  of  the  sea,  with  the 
consequent  widening  of  commercial  interests  and  the  rise  of  large 


128         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

cities  as  trade  centers.  Everywhere  there  were  symptoms  that 
the  old  order  of  things  was  breaking  up,  and  that  the  forces 
manifested  in  industrial  activities,  educational  reforms  and  the 
rising  spirit  of  revolt,  were  fighting  their  way  to  recognition  and 
victory.  This  general  interest  was  favorable  to  any  revolutionary 
movement  in  any  field  and  along  any  lines.  Particularly  favor- 
able was  it  to  any  movement  in  behalf  of  the  reform  of  the 
Church,  for  in  Germany  the  ecclesiastical  abuses  of  the  time 
flourished  in  their  most  exaggerated  forms.  The  enormous 
wealth  of  the  clergy,  the  princely  state  of  the  great  feudal  pre- 
lates, the  extortions  practiced  under  the  forms  of  innumerable 
levies  for  all  sorts  of  purposes,  had  for  long  time  been  cultivating 
a  spirit  of  impatience  among  the  masses  of  the  people  and  popu- 
lar hostility  to  the  Church.  In  addition  to  all  this,  there  was  the 
traditional  antagonism  between  Germany  and  Rome,  representing 
the  ancient  rivalry  between  the  empire  and  the  papacy  and  reach- 
ing back  to  the  memorable  conflict  between  Henry  IV  and 
Gregory  VII  in  the  eleventh  century.  The  national  sentiment, 
mixed  with  some  resentment,  had  much  to  do  with  Germany's 
final  revolt  and  repudiation  of  papal  supremacy. 

Many  causes  had  thus  been  at  work  preparing  the  way  for  the 
great  movement  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  hour  was  at  hand, 
and  Luther  came  with  the  hour  panoplied  and  equipped  for  that 
leadership  into  which  he  was  swept  by  providential  currents,  the 
direction  and  the  end  of  which  no  one  at  the  moment  perceived. 
He  unconsciously  and  without  design  on  his  part,  precipitated  a 
crisis  in  the  history  of  mankind.  He  stamped  his  tremendous 
personality  upon  the  whole  movement,  so  that  we  always  think  of 
him  as  the  actual  creator  of  the  Reformation.  The  Church 
ignored  the  cry  of  her  own  children,  and  heaven  sent  the  man 
who  was  capable  of  chastising  her  for  her  faithlessness.  The 
conditions  he  confronted  demanded  a  reformer  and  not  a  revolu- 
tionist, although  some  revolutionary  accidents  were  soon  asso- 
ciated with  the  new  movement,  as  the  abuse  and  not  the  result 
of  the  newly-revived  doctrines.  He  met  the  conditions,  and  with 
marvelous  common  sense  he  held  the  reins  and  kept  the  wheels 
of  progress  from  being  dashed  to  pieces  upon  dangerous  rocks, 
sometimes  concealed  in  the  unreasoning  hostility  of  his  an- 
nounced enemies  and  sometimes  in  the  radicalism  of  unbalanced 
friends,   revolutionary  reconstructionists,  and  iconoclasts.     Fac- 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  129 

ing  such  conditions,  this  extraordinary  man  whom  God  had  raised 
up  divided  the  clouds,  which  hung  over  medieval  Europe  and 
darkened  it,  that  the  glorious  Sun  of  Righteousness  might  shine 
through,  and  men,  ignorant,  enslaved  and  lost,  might  once  more 
find  their  way  back  to  the  oracles  of  God  and  the  source  of  sal- 
vation. In  this  great  movement,  primarily  in  the  sphere  of  re- 
ligion, it  was  Luther  who  was  called  upon  to  voice  the  spirit  and 
tendencies  of  the  age.  While  he  lived  he  dominated  this  vast  and 
complicated  movement  for  the  reform  of  the  Church  and  a  re- 
affirmation of  apostolic  teaching — that  movement,  which,  uniting 
in  itself  all  the  hopeful  features  of  the  age,  resulted  in  the  seces- 
sion from  the  Church  of  Rome  of  the  Teutonic  peoples,  who  re- 
jected the  medieval  hierarchy  and  scholasticism  and  secured  to 
Protestantism  the  inalienable  rights  of  the  individual,  emancipa- 
tion from  priestcraft,  the  restoration  of  spiritual  autonomy  and 
religious  freedom. 

This  glorious  achievement  of  Luther  in  the  religious  sphere 
involved  the  demand  for  liberty  in  the  political  sphere.  "The 
Protestant  Revolution,"  says  Frederick  Seebohm,  "was  but  one 
wave  of  the  advancing  tide  of  modern  civilization.  It  was  a 
great  revolutionary  wave,  the  onward  swell  of  which,  beginning 
with  the  refusal  of  reform  at  the  Diet  of  Worms,  produced  the 
Peasants'  War  and  swept  on  through  the  revolt  of  the  Nether- 
lands, the  Thirty  Years'  War,  the  Puritan  revolution  in  England 
under  Oliver  Cromwell,  the  formation  of  the  great  independent 
American  republic,  until  it  came  to  a  head  and  broke  in  all  the 
terrors  of  the  French  Revolution."  Thus  Luther's  contention  for 
religious  beliefs  and  freedom  involved  political  independence,  the 
just  claim  to  an  equal  share  in  civil  rights. 

But  in  our  search  for  the  genesis  of  the  Reformation  move- 
ment we  are  always  led  back  to  religion.  In  the  religious  strug- 
gles, beliefs  and  affirmations  of  Luther  we  come  upon  that  which 
is  fundamental,  and  any  interpretation  of  the  Reformer  and  his 
work  is  inadequate  which  does  not  start  with  and  affirm  constantly 
the  primacy  of  that  fact.  He  was  mastered  by  a  passion  for  re- 
ligion. He  had  a  dominating  perception  of  the  infinite,  and  this 
was  so  manifested  to  him  through  the  Church,  the  Bible,  and 
Christ  and  His  redemptive  work,  as  well  as  his  own  personal  ex- 
perience, that  it  not  merely  influenced  him,  but  dominated  his 
whole  character  and  controlled  his  whole  life.     This  perception 


130         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

of  the  infinite  in  his  case,  as  in  that  of  many  another  good  and 
great  man,  was  not  always  accurate,  for  no  conception  of  the 
infinite  is  always  accurate.  But  it  was  with  Luther  a  real,  a  vital 
and  a  controlling  perception.  The  supernatural  to  this  man  was 
no  mere  theory  whereby  to  account  for  phenomena.  God  was  for 
him  no  mere  hypothesis  gotten  up  to  explain  the  creation,  co- 
ordination and  direction  of  the  universe.  In  the  reverent  con- 
sciousness of  the  supernatural  he  lived  from  year  to  year.  God 
in  Christ  was  to  him  the  great  Companion,  and  this  experience 
must  be  understood  if  we  would  understand  and  rightly  estimate 
Luther's  character.  The  faith  in  Immanuel,  God  with  us,  was 
his  master  passion,  and  there  was  about  it  the  note  of  constant  and 
triumphant  assurance.  In  consequence  of  his  study  of  the  Scrip- 
tures and  his  own  profound  personal  experience  he  had  come  to 
hate  with  a  perfect  hatred,  and  fight  with  a  passionate  courage, 
whatever  he  thought  interposed  itself  as  an  obstacle  between  the 
souls  of  the  people  and  God.  In  his  case  the  basal  principle, 
always  that  of  the  courageous  fighter,  the  warm-hearted  friend, 
the  practical  reformer,  the  student  and  scholar,  the  Christian 
disciple,  and  the  devout  soul,  was  religion. 

As  one  reads  the  story  of  his  life  it  requires  but  little  penetra- 
tion to  discover  that  he  was  possessed  by  one  profound  religious 
principle,  a  single  inspiring  idea,  which  ran  through  the  whole 
movement  which  bears  his  impress,  and  which  more  than  any 
other  force  gave  it  direction,  strength  and  triumph.  Many  other 
influences  were,  no  doubt,  at  work.  The  dawning  life  of  national 
feeling  and  of  literary  culture,  all  through  the  southern  and 
western  nations  of  Europe,  had  their  influence  in  promoting  the 
Reformation,  but  neither  of  them,  or  both  combined,  can  be  held 
as  adequate  in  accounting  for  Luther  or  his  work.  They  served 
to  prepare  the  way,  but  nothing  more. 

Luther  was  a  great  religious  leader  because  he  knew  so  well 
what  religion  was,  and  which  was  so  real  in  his  own  life.  He 
was  full  of  it,  was  possessed  by  it,  he  lived  for  it,  and  it  made  him 
what  he  Avas  and  what  he  seemed  to  be  in  the  eyes  of  the 
generation  of  men  before  whom  he  passed  his  life.  When  he 
talked  and  wrote  of  religion  they  somehow  felt  confidently  as- 
sured that  he  knew  what  he  was  talking,  about  and  was  attempting 
to  put  in  form  for  other  people.  In  short,  it  is  to  be  said  that 
Luther  had  overwhelming  religious  convictions,  that  they  consti- 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  131 

tuted  the  primary  force  in  his  life  and  work,  and  that  these  con- 
victions he  knew  how  to  communicate  in  popular  form  in  either 
speaking  or  writing  to  other  people. 

The  living  God,  not  a  philosophical  or  mystical  abstraction — 
the  manifest  and  gracious  God  who  was  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ 
— was  a  God  to  be  reached  immediately  by  every  Christian :  that 
was  at  the  basis  of  Luther's  greatness  and  achievements.  In  this 
one  thing  he  was  great  and  mighty,  the  one  overmastering  man 
of  his  time,  victoriously  overcoming  the  history  of  a  thousand 
years  in  order  to  force  his  age  and  his  country  into  new  channels. 
The  rediscovered  knowledge  of  God  in  the  gospel  of  His  grace 
was  the  balance  wheel  of  his  life.  What  it  means  to  have  God  in 
Christ,  what  this  God  is,  how  He  becomes  related  to  us  in  Christ, 
and  how  we  can  apprehend  and  hold  on  to  Him — all  that  Luther 
experienced  and  that  he  proclaimed.  Casting  himself  on  Christ 
in  confidence  and  trust — that  was  to  Luther  the  sum  of  religion, 
the  vital  thought  and  power  of  his  life.  It  was  his  strong  grasp 
on  the  great  things  of  religion  that  forces  us  to  look  for  the  real 
origin  of  the  Reformation  deeper  below  the  surface  than  in  either 
humanism  or  nationalism. 

This  it  is  which  adds  so  much  of  abiding  interest  to  the  study 
of  Luther's  personal  religious  experience  and  struggles  until  he 
emerged  from  the  bondage  of  the  law  into  the  freedom  where- 
with Christ  makes  men  free.  His  earlier  conception  of  Chris- 
tianity was  distinctively  medieval.  He  had  been  taught  to  look 
upon  Christ  as  a  new  law-giver,  even  as  a  second  Moses,  who  had 
been  sent  from  God  to  impose  anew  upon  men  the  requirements, 
restrictions  and  regulations  of  the  law.  To  use  his  own  words  in 
the  "Table  Talk" :  "We  were  all  taught  that  we  must  make  satis- 
faction for  our  sins,  and  that  Christ  would  demand  on  the  day  of 
judgment  how  we  had  atoned  for  our  guilt  and  how  many  good 
works  we  had  done."  Of  him  Melanchthon  says  that  "often, 
when  he  thought  on  the  anger  of  God,  he  was  seized  with  a  terror 
so  violent  that  he  was  well-nigh  bereft  of  life" ;  and  Luther  him- 
self says:  "I  wore  out  my  body  with  vigils  and  fastings,  and 
hoped  thus  to  satisfy  the  law  and  deliver  my  conscience  from  the 
sting  of  guilt.  Had  I  not  been  redeemed  by  the  comfort  of  the 
Gospel  I  could  not  have  lived  two  years  longer."  He  struggled 
with  doubt  and  terror,  with  remorse  and  shame.  In  his  religious 
difficulties   he   had    fancied  that  he   had   seen   demons   and   evil 


132    LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

spirits,  and  had  held  frequent  contests  with  the  chief  adversary 
himself.  He  had  labored  for  purity  of  life,  and  had  attained  it 
in  the  required  self-repressive  methods.  He  had  lived  as  far  as 
possible  above  the  allurements  of  the  present.  He  was  learned, 
accomplished  and  creative.  He  had  been  a  profound  student  of 
the  Scriptures,  and  had  labored  night  and  day  to  free  his  mind 
from  the  shadows  of  human  traditions  and  to  hear  and  attend 
only  to  the  voice  of  the  Gospel.  Before  he  was  prepared  for  his 
real  work  he  had  to  be  led  back  to  the  assurance  of  Paul,  that 
"by  grace  ye  are  saved,  through  faith,"  and  the  truth  that  faith 
is  that  response  of  the  soul  which  trusts  the  love  and  accepts  the 
mercy  of  God.  If  the  whole  of  Luther's  religious  history,  from 
his  entrance  into  the  Augustinian  monastery  at  Erfurt  in  1505  to 
the  publication  of  the  Augsburg  Confession  in  1520,  shows  one 
thing  more  clearly  than  any  other,  it  is  that  the  movement  of 
which  he  was  the  soul  and  center  did  not  arise  primarily  from  any 
merely  intellectual  criticism  of  the  doctrines  of  the  medieval 
Church.  It  was  the  self-torturing  cry  about  his  personal  salva- 
tion that  drove  him  into  the  monastery,  he  believing,  in  harmony 
with  the  almost  unanimous  opinion  of  his  age,  that  there,  if  any- 
where, he  could  find  that  peace  which  he  sought  after  with  such 
desperation. 

VIII 

If  we  are,  accordingly,  seeking,  in  a  primary  way,  for  the 
genesis  of  the  Lutheran  movement  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the 
quadri-centennial  of  which  we  are  celebrating  this  year  of  grace, 
1917,  we  shall  find  it  in  the  struggles  of  conscience  and  the  re- 
sulting action  of  a  German  monk.  A  mendicant,  an  Augustinian 
brother,  had  tortured  himself  with  the  question,  "What  must  I  do 
to  be  saved?"  When  he  had  obtained  the  right  and  satisfactory 
answer  from  the  Scriptures  the  secret  of  that  vitalizing  move- 
ment in  both  religion  and  civilization  was  out.  '  Judged  by  its 
antecedent  causes  and  its  worked-out  results,  whatever  may  have 
been  its  latent  tendencies  and  ulterior  consequences,  it  was  pri- 
marily an  event  in  the  sphere  of  religion,  as  it  was  expressed  in 
one  earnest  man's  search  for  the  way  of  salvation.  From  this 
point  of  view  it  must,  first  and  prior  to  all  speculation  upon  its 
indirect  and  remote  results,  be  contemplated.  Before  that  move- 
ment began  in  Luther's  experience,  a  vast  institution,  articulated 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  133 

with  unsurpassed  human  wisdom,  had  been  interposed  between 
the  individual  and  the  objects  of  religious  faith  and  hope. 

Schleiermacher,  the  great  German  theologian  and  philosopher 
— a  man  capable  of  marvelous  thinking  on  the  greatest  of  all  sub- 
jects— never  uttered  a  more  fundamental  truth  and  interpreta- 
tion of  unregenerate  human  nature  than  when  he  said  that  "the 
natural  man  is  a  born  Catholic."  By  this  he  meant  wThat  may  be 
amply  verified  from  the  experience  and  observation  of  men  who 
have  dealt  much  with  other  men  on  their  religious  side,  that  they 
want  to  come  into  rightful  relations  with  God  by  that  which  they 
can  do  themselves.  In  their  moral  and  religious  struggles,  as  in 
other  things,  most  people  do  not  desire  to  cut  a  small  figure.  It 
is  this  that  is  at  the  basis  of  the  conception  of  salvation  held  by 
the  medieval  Church,  in  the  bosom  of  which  Luther  had  been 
nourished,  and  to  obedience  to  the  directions  and  impositions  of 
which  he  had  devoutly  trusted  for  salvation  from  sin. 

The  first  question  with  Luther  was  not,  how  may  I  reform  the 
Church )  but  how  may  I  be  saved  and  have  assurance  of  my  sal- 
vation ?  In  attempting  to  answer  that  question  after  the  medieval 
fashion,  the  struggles  of  conscience  of  the  Reformer  constitute 
one  of  the  most  interesting  and  deeply  suggestive  chapters  in 
human  biography.  In  man,  heathen  and  Jew,  there  is  a  tendency 
to  make  for  himself  a  path  back  to  God,  without  whom  he  cannot 
exist,  and  in  whom  he  must  find  rest,  if  rest  is  to  be  obtained. 
Luther  followed  this  humanly  indicated  path  to  its  remotest  end, 
only  to  find  a  troubled  conscience  under  a  constantly  increasing 
burden  of  sin.  If  ever  there  was  a  man,  a  son  of  the  Church, 
who  tried  the  medieval  method  of  obtaining  salvation,  with  its 
multitudinous  impositions,  through  and  through,  and  from  top  tc 
bottom,  in  his  own  personal  struggles  in  the  sphere  of  religion 
that  man  was  Martin  Luther.  He  was  in  many  respects  one  oi 
the  most  paradoxical  of  all  the  great  men  of  history.  In  him 
there  was  an  unique  combination  of  depth,  even  bordering  at 
times  on  melancholy,  but  it  was  associated  with  a  mother  wit  that 
was  exhaustless.  He  was  a  man  fond  of  humor,  much  of  which 
he  had  in  his  own  nature ;  but  notwithstanding  this,  he  was  in  turn 
bowed  down  under  the  burden  of  the  consciousness  of  his  own 
sin. 

We  must  understand  the  character  of  the  man  when  we  attempt 
an  estimate  of  the   Reformer's   struggles   of   conscience   in   his 


134         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

thorough  testing  out  of  that  peculiar  apprehension  of  the  method 
of  attaining  to  peace  with  God  taught  by  the  Church  of  his  day. 
Inside  that  Erfurt  monastery  he  applied  himself  with  all  the 
force  of  his  strong  and  candid  nature,  using  every  means  that  the 
complicated  penitential  system  of  the  Church  had  prescribed, 
with  much  elaboration,  to  help  him  on  his  way  of  making  him- 
self pious  and  a  fit  subject  for  the  grace  of  God  which  procures 
salvation.  With  blind  obedience  he  submitted  to  the  orders  of 
his  superiors  ;  brought  himself  into  subjection  to  the  most  rigorous 
ecclesiastical  statutes ;  diligently  sought  for  the  consolations  he 
was  assured  would  be  given  by  confession  of  his  sins;  exhausted 
the  complex  system  of  expiations  recommended  by  the  Church ; 
made  full  use  of  the  sacraments,  which  were  supposed  to  work 
effectively  in  the  most  mechanical  way ;  and  all  the  time  looking  in 
vain  for  that  tranquillity  of  soul  which  he  was  assured  would  ac- 
company their  faithful  observance.  But  in  spite  of  their  failure 
to  confer  that  for  which  he  most  of  all  longed,  he  persevered  in 
the  way  marked  out. 

It  is  enough  to  say  that  the  outcome  of  that  struggle,  when 
at  last  he  found  his  way  into  the  presence  of  God,  and  knew  by 
his  own  personal  experience  that  the  living  God  was  accessible  to 
every  Christian,  was  the  restoration  to  Christendom  of  the  un- 
questioned teaching  of  the  New  Testament,  with  its  manifold 
consequences. 

In  his  conflicts  to  be  free  from  the  terrible  dominion  of  sin  he 
was  standing,  without  thinking  of  doing  any  such  important 
thing,  for  the  cause  of  the  rejected  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles.  He 
followed  in  the  steps  of  St.  Paul,  who,  from  a  Pharisee  of  the 
Pharisees,  became  the  strongest  opponent  of  Jewish  legalism.  In 
the  severity  of  his  struggles,  Luther's  sole  motive  was  concern  for 
God's  pardon.  For  this  end  he  imposed  all  sorts  of  privations 
willing  to  be  dead  to  the  world  and  buried  from  the  sight  of 
men  that  he  might,  for  himself,  make  sure  of  eternal  life.  His 
one  great  quest  was  after  the  real  method  of  winning  the  sense  of 
his  soul's  salvation.  To  this  supreme  object  he  was  willing  to  run 
counter  to  the  judgment  of  father  and  friend,  and  sacrifice  the 
fairest  prospect  of  life  in  its  worldly  aspects.  He  did  not  come 
to  the  monastery  in  1505  to  study  theology,  much  as  he  was  de- 
voted to  the  teachings  of  Gabriel  Biel,  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Will- 
iam of  Occam,  but  he  had  come  there  to  save  his  soul.     He  was 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  135 

upon  himself,  mortified  the  flesh,  practiced  all  those  self-inflicted 
torments  which  the  Church  of  that  period  was  so  clever  in  invent- 
ing. The  gloomy  and  intolerant  monastic  rigidity,  the  want  of 
sympathy  for  any  other  conception  of  life,  took  hold  of  his  char- 
acter. His  theological  training  had  taught  him  that  God's  pardon 
for  sin  could  be  had  through  the  sacrament  of  penance,  and  he 
was  determined  that  no  penitential  exaction  should  remain  un- 
tried. He  was  seeking  after  inward  satisfaction,  the  sense  of 
spiritual  tranquillity,  and  his  devotion  in  the  monastery  was  based 
upon  a  direct  aim  at  that  much-sought  result.  He  proceeded  to 
search  for  it  by  means  of  vehement  ascetic  practices.  He 
watched  long  and  rigorously,  together  with  his  prayers  and  fast- 
ings. "Often  on  returning  to  his  cell  he  knelt  at  the  foot  of  the 
bed,  and  remained  there  until  daybreak."  His  asceticism, 
mingled  with  the  internal  unrest  and  tumult  of  his  mind,  gave 
him  an  unnatural  strength,  and  he  relates  how  that  once  for  a 
whole  fortnight  he  neither  ate,  drank  nor  slept. 

Under  the  stress  of  such  severities  his  health  gave  way,  and. 
becoming  pale  and  emaciated,  he  was  brought  near  to  death's 
door.  Not  satisfied  with  the  feeling  of  having  done  something  to 
atone  for  a  fault,  he  wanted  the  feeling  of  having  annihilated  the 
fault  itself,  and  of  having  put  himself  exactly  into  his  original 
state  as  he  was  before  the  fault  had  been  committed.  In  this  way 
Luther  went  on  seeking,  with  all  the  eagerness  of  direct  penitenial 
effort,  an  absolutely  clear  conscience.  But  the  pursuit  was  not 
successful,  and  at  the  close  of  each  successive  stage  of  his  peni- 
tential asceticism  he  found  himself  as  discontented  as  when  he 
began.  "At  the  foot  of  the  altar,  his  hands  clasped,  his  eyes  full 
of  tears,"  he  prayed  for  peace  and  found  none.  "One  morning, 
the  door  of  his  cell  not  being  open  as  usual,  the  brethren  became 
alarmed;  they  knocked,  and  there  was  no  reply.  The  door  was 
burst  in,  and  Fra  Martin  was  found  stretched  on  the  floor  in  a 
state  of  ecstasy,  scarcely  breathing  and  well-nigh  dead."  Vexed, 
wearied,  harassed  and  faint,  he  was  proving  to  the  full  the  death- 
working  power  of  all  attempts  to  justify  oneself  by  means  of 
works  carefully  elaborated  and  minutely  prescribed  by  the 
Church. 

The  last  word  of  the  Pelagianizing  school  of  the  Scholastics 
was  that  a  man  must  work  out  his  own  salvation,  and  Luther  was 
addressing  himself  to  the  task  after  the  most  approved  medieval 


136         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

fashion.  What,  in  an  earlier  age,  had  tortured  Augustine,  the 
greatest  of  the  post-apostolic  fathers,  was  now  torturing  and  ter- 
rifying Luther.  In  the  long  history  of  the  Church,  if  ever  there 
was  a  man  who  tried  to  find  peace  of  soul  and  commend  himself 
to  God  by  means  of  self-imposed  austerities,  that  man  was 
Luther.  Staupitz,  the  vicar-general  of  his  monastic  order,  had 
told  him  that  true  repentance  began  in  the  love  of  God,  and  bade 
him  to  love  the  Saviour  who  had  first  loved  him.  But  he  did  not 
at  once  grasp  the  significance  of  the  advice.  The  difficulty  he 
experienced  in  extricating  himself  from  the  meshes  of  the  medie- 
val theology  which  he  had  zealously  studied  can  only  be  appre- 
ciated by  looking  into  that  theology  itself,  wherein  the  Church 
had  changed  the  evangelical  interpretation  of  repentance  into  a 
mere  round  of  exacting  penitential  exercises.  It  was  a  merely 
legal  system  of  justification,  which  required  a  round  of  works  in 
order  to  make  the  pardon  of  man  complete. 

This  system  found  a  support  in  the  form  of  language  used  in 
the  Latin  Vulgate.  Repentance,  in  the  Greek  of  the  Gospel,  is  an 
internal  process,  whereas,  in  the  Vulgate,  it  is  largely  an  external 
process.  At  a  critical  incident  in  his  youth  Luther  had  become 
possessed  of  an  intolerable  dread,  believed  that  he  had  heard  a 
voice  from  heaven  calling  him  to  repent,  and  he  promptly  vowed 
that  he  would  henceforth  give  his  life  to  asceticism  and  monastic 
gloom.  With  the  impulsive  inconstancy  of  youth,  he  passed  the 
next  evening  with  his  youthful  companions  in  the  pleasures  of 
music  and  song,  possibly  anxious  to  see  if  he  could  drown  in  the 
joys  of  the  world  the  pains  of  a  wounded  spirit.  The  day  after 
he  hastened  to  the  convent  of  the  Augustinians  at  Erfurt  and 
took  the  irrevocable  vow  of  a  monk.  He  had  resolved,  through 
monastic  seclusion  and  by  means  of  the  practice  of  the  severest 
austerities,  to  escape  the  consequence  of  sin  and  find  peace  of 
conscience. 

In  this  place,  apart  from  the  world,  he  was  the  most  faithful 
of  ascetics.  All  his  early  powers,  all  the  exuberance  of  his 
youthful  and  temperamental  joyousness,  the  abundant  capabil- 
ities of  his  fine  intellect,  were  shut  up  in  the  narrow  cell  of  a 
monastic  and  wasted  on  the  observance  of  unevangelical  rites  and 
impositions.  The  result,  as  we  have  but  indicated,  was  appalling. 
He  was  weighed  down  by  an  ever-increasing  consciousness  of  sin. 
Despair  and  death  seemed  to  be  his  only  portion.     His  life  became 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  137 

a  real  agony,  and  at  times  he  would  sink  down  in  his  cell  in  a 
deep  swoon,  from  which  he  could  only  be  aroused  by  the  gentle 
touch  of  a  stringed  instrument.  The  coming  reformer  of  the 
Church  and  most  dominant  personality  in  modern  history  was 
trying  to  commend  himself  to  God  after  the  most  approved  order, 
as  that  order  was  carefully  prescribed  by  the  medieval  doctors  of 
religion.  With  him,  at  this  time,  the  exactions  of  the  hierarchy 
had  usurped  the  place  of  his  personal  Redeemer.  In  all  these 
doleful  practices  of  self-abnegation,  that  he  might  give  himself  in 
the  most  uninterrupted  manner  and  under  the  most  favorable  con- 
ditions to  the  useless  undertaking  to  which  he  was  addressing 
himself,  he  clothed  his  body  in  the  white  woolen  shirt  in  honor  of 
the  Virgin,  assumed  the  black  cowl  and  frock,  tied  with  a  leathern 
girdle,  undertook  the  most  menial  monastic  offices  to  subdue  his 
pride — sweeping  the  floor,  begging  bread  through  the  streets,  and 
submitting  without  a  murmur  to  other  ascetic  severities,  said 
twenty-five  pater-nosters,  with  the  Ave  Maria,  in  each  of  seven 
appointed  hours  of  prayer,  regularly  confessed  his  sins  to  the 
priest  at  least  once  a  week,  solemnly  promised  to  live  until  death 
in  poverty  and  chastity,  and  to  render  obedience  to  Almighty 
God,  to  the  Virgin  Mary  and  to  the  prior  of  the  monastery. 

Writing  in  1518,  he  tells  us  that  no  pen  could  describe  the 
mental  anguish  he  endured.  With  his  high  cheek  bones, 
emaciated  frame,  gleaming  eyes  and  look  of  settled  despair,  in 
the  performance  of  these  pious  exercises  Luther  presented  an 
aspect  that  was  sad  and  forbidding.  How  long  this  famous,  and, 
in  its  outcome,  influential  struggle  lasted  is  not  certain.  There 
are  indications  that  it  endured  for  two  years,  during  which  the 
sense  of  sin  as  an  all-pervading  principle,  as  a  corruption  of 
human  nature,  as  a  state  of  alienation  from  God  and  of  hostility 
to  God,  weighed  upon  that  fine  mind  and  soul  like  an  incubus 
that  brought  him  at  times  to  the  brink  of  utter  despair.  In  re- 
ligious biography  there  are  but  few  such  accounts  of  the  severity 
of  the  conflict  between  the  law  of  God  and  the  law  of  sin. 

But  in  spite  of  this  melancholy  and  medieval  state  of  mind,  a 
great  development  was  taking  place  within  Luther.  He  scourged 
himself,  but  pursued  his  studies.  In  the  midst  of  these  agonizing 
mental  and  spiritual  conflicts  he  was  thinking  and  praying  himself 
out  of  those  inadequate  and  erroneous  views  of  salvation  which 
had  prevailed  in  the  Church  for  a  thousand  years,  which  the 


138         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

people  had  inherited  from  their  forefathers  with  their  very  exist- 
ence, in  which  they  had  been  educated  and  under  which  all  their 
faculties  had  been  formed  and  moulded.  The  question  agitating 
him  was  one  of  vital  importance  to  the  whole  Church  and  to  all 
men  in  their  craving  after  reconciliation  with  God.  It  is  so  in 
every  age,  but  was  of  special  significance  then.  The  real  ref- 
ormation of  the  Church  could  only  be  effected  by  the  recovery  of 
the  evangelical  methods  of  attaining  the  grace  of  God  which 
passeth  all  understanding.  But  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  that 
recovery  were  almost  insuperable.  The  Bible  was  but  little  read. 
Luther  himself  was  nearly  twenty  and  a  bachelor  of  arts  before 
he  had  ever  seen  a  copy  of  the  Scriptures.  What  he  knew  about 
it  had  been  gained  from  the  liturgical  practices  of  the  Church. 
At  that  time  he  was  finely  versed  in  Scotus,  Aquinas  and  William 
Occam,  but  as  for  the  Bible  he  knew  but  little.  But  the  difficul- 
ties were  at  last  overcome  in  the  experience  of  the  greatest  of  the 
Reformers.  He  grasped  the  significance  of  faith,  of  salvation  by 
grace  and  the  right  and  scriptural  way  to  find  peace  with  God. 
Then  the  secret  of  the  Reformation  was  out. 

IX 

Luther  by  and  by  came  to  understand,  through  the  influence  of 
his  friend  Staupitz  and  the  New  Testament,  that  according  to 
God's  promise  the  righteousness  of  God  might  become  man's 
possession  in  and  through  Jesus  Christ.  Fellowship  with  God  is 
founded  on  personal  trust  of  God.  By  and  by  the  fact  of  the  true 
relation  of  the  believing  soul  to  God  came  to  him  suddenly  with 
all  the  force  of  a  revelation,  and  his  vexed  and  troubled  conscience 
was  at  rest.  In  his  struggles  Luther  reached  the  conclusion  that 
some  medium  was  necessary  by  means  of  which  a  man  was  to  lay 
hold  of  and  appropriate  to  himself  a  perfect  righteousness.  That 
medium,  according  to  St.  Paul,  he  discovered  to  be  faith,  the  act 
of  commitment  of  oneself  to  Christ,  by  which  he  is  assured  of 
that  of  which  he  most  of  all  wants  to  be  assured.  The  great 
cardinal  principle  with  Luther  was  the  divine  assurance  of  pardon 
and  reconciliation  with  God. 

The  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  began  when,  in  this 
pious  monk,  the  soul  demanding  assurance  of  salvation  found  it 
in  the  gratuitous  justification  of  the  sinner  before  God.     Luther 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  139 

never  speaks  more  frequently  of  anything  than  of  the  change 
which  took  place  within  him  when  he  grasped  the  significance  of 
salvation  by  grace,  when  he  learned  once  for  all  that  assurance 
and  peace  come  not  as  the  result  of  man's  works,  but  as  an  ex- 
pression of  the  divine  benignity.  The  attempt  to  commend  him- 
self to  God  by  means  of  austerities  only  saddened  him,  but  when 
he  once  apprehended  the  meaning  of  the  words  of  Paul,  "There- 
fore being  justified  by  faith,"  he  rejoiced  in  the  freedom  where- 
with Christ  doth  make  men  free.  He  perceived,  as  but  few  men 
have  in  the  fulness  of  its  meaning,  the  content  of  the  Gospel 
which  had  been  aforetime  proclaimed  with  such  clearness  and 
such  strength  by  Paul,  and  which  for  the  instruction  and  guidance 
of  the  Church  in  all  times  has  been  written  down  in  the  Roman 
and  Galatian  Epistles,  "Therefore  we  hold  that  man  became  just 
without  the  works  of  the  law,  through  faith  alone."  When  he 
came  to  know  that  salvation  was  not  a  negotiable  quantity,  not 
something  for  the  pope  to  sell,  but  something  rather  that  God 
proposed  to  give,  that  it  was  not  a  human  achievement  but  a  di- 
vine bestowment,  as  something  not  of  man  but  of  God,  he  had 
the  longed-for  spiritual  tranquillity.  When  he  saw  that  Christ 
was  not  come  as  a  law-giver  so  much  as  a  Saviour ;  that  love,  and 
not  wrath  or  justice,  is  the  motive  of  His  mission  and  work ;  that 
the  forgiveness  of  sins  through  Him  is  a  free  gift,  and  that  good 
works  are  the  fruit  of  faith,  then  he  had  a  clue  to  the  under- 
standing of  the  Bible.  He  then  came  to  realize  that  he  was  some- 
thing more  than  a  member  of  a  vast  ecclesiastical  machine,  some- 
thing more  than  a  single  factor  in  an  external  institution,  even  an 
individual  soul  who  was  to  deal  directly  with  God  through  the 
mediation  of  Christ.  Wrhen  once  he  grasped  the  evangelical  con- 
ception of  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  he  swept  away  the  barriers  be- 
tween man  and  the  free  sovereign  grace  of  God  which  the  medie- 
val Church  had  so  elaborately  constructed. 

His  own  theology  was  the  outgrowth  of  his  own  personal 
experience.  He  had  to  receive  the  peace  of  forgiveness  as  the 
free  gift  of  God  before  ever  his  voice  was  lifted  up  against  the 
dogma  of  the  merit  of  good  works.  It  was  his  firm  grasp  on  the 
Gospel  of  justification  by  faith,  which  in  the  last  analysis  was  the 
force  that  delivered  from  priestly  domination  and  self-imposed 
ascetic  observances.  Henceforth  men  came  to  know  that  they 
could    realize   the    true    Christian   life   without    either   priest   or 


140         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

cloister,  and  that  they  could  come  into  immediate  access  to  God 
in  Christ  and  stand  fast  in  the  liberty  wherewith  Christ  doth 
make  men  free. 

Thus  with  Luther  in  his  struggles  of  conscience  all  turned  on 
his  discovery  of  the  Gospel  method  of  justification.  The  difficul- 
ties which  he  encountered  in  extricating  himself  from  the  meshes 
of  the  medieval  theology,  to  the  study  of  which  he  had  so  dili- 
gently devoted  himself,  can  only  be  appreciated  by  looking  into 
that  theology  itself  in  which  the  Church  had  changed  the  Gosepl 
conception  of  repentance  into  a  round  of  imposed  penitential 
exercises.  It  had  been  hardened  down  into  a  mere  system  of 
legal  justification,  which  required  works  in  order  to  make  the  par- 
don of  man  complete.  This  discovery  of  the  Gospel  at  the  end  of 
his  almost  unprecedented  spiritual  struggles  by  Luther  was  the 
greatest  gift  of  the  Reformation.  It  was  the  discovery  of  that 
which  more  than  anything  else  distinguishes  Christianity  from  all 
other  religions  on  earth.  That  discovery  restored  the  right  of  the 
soul  to  answer  directly  to  God ;  the  right  proclaimed  by  Peter  and 
John  when  they  defied  the  Sanhedrin  with  the  exclamation, 
"Whether  it  be  right  in  the  sight  of  God  to  hearken  unto  you 
more  than  unto  God,  judge  ye."  For  ages  the  right  of  Chris- 
tians to  go  unhindered  to  God  had  been  denied  and  withheld  by 
the  old  Church,  which  had  usurped  all  other  authority,  social  and 
civil.  Luther  broke  the  fetters  and  found  not  only  soul  freedom 
but  thereby  also  inaugurated  the  era  of  modern  liberty  and  demo- 
cratic independence. 

Thus,  in  his  own  personal  religious  experience,  the  beginning 
of  the  Reformation  meant  for  Luther  a  movement  away  from  a 
mechanical  to  an  individual  conception  of  salvation.  It  taught 
men  once  again  to  seek  an  individual  and  personal  relation  to 
God,  maintaining  that  a  man's  relation  to  the  Church  was  deter- 
mined primarily  by  his  relation  to  Christ.  That  experience  of  the 
Reformer  was  the  nucleus  about  which  was  gathered  all  that  was 
most  vital  in  the  thought  of  that  age — the  return  to  the  Bible,  to 
Augustine  and  to  mysticism,  the  protest  against  the  sophistries  of 
the  scholastics  and  the  corruptions  of  the  Church,  and  the  restor- 
ation of  a  simpler  and  more  personal  relation  of  the  soul  to  God 
in  and  through  the  mediation  of  Christ,  the  one  and  only  and  all 
sufficient  High  Priest. 

Luther  was  fitted  to  be  the  prophet  of  his  age  because  he  had 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  141 

the  most  searching  experience  in  what  that  age  most  of  all 
needed — personal  religion  as  contrasted  with  corporate  religion. 
That  experience  bade  every  human  mediator  stand  out  of  the 
way.  To  a  large  extent  it  proclaimed  the  democracy  of  the  saints 
and  prepared  the  way  for  the  coming  larger  democracy  and  vir- 
tually for  all  the  freedom  we  now  enjoy.  In  his  religious  strug- 
gles Luther  proclaimed  a  declaration  of  the  independence  of  the 
human  mind  and  soul  from  the  bondage  of  human  authority. 
Hitherto,  in  the  medieval  Church,  the  minister  of  Christ  had  been 
enthroned  in  awful  isolation  beyond  the  reach  of  his  brethren  in 
the  same  faith.  But  one  of  the  very  first  results  immediately 
flowing  from  Luther's  standpoint  was  an  emphatic  qualifying  of 
the  mediatorial  power  of  the  hierarchy  and  its  official  priesthood. 
If  the  individual  can  come  directly  to  Christ,  and  in  the  exercise 
of  living  faith  in  Him  can  find  assurance  of  salvation,  as  did 
Luther,  then  he  is  evidently  released  from  any  absolute  depend- 
ence upon  the  priest.  The  mere  apprehension  of  Christ  in  the 
Sacrament  gave  him  the  personal  assurance  of  the  communication 
of  grace. 

Along  with  this  stand  for  independence  it  is  well  to  remember 
that  it  was  his  candid  and  unambiguous  intellect,  in  alliance  with 
a  positive  and  unambiguous  faith,  that  made  Luther  always 
strong,  free  and  courageous.  It  was  his  religious  conscience,  it 
was  the  question  of  his  soul's  salvation,  it  was  the  inward  craving 
for  assurance  which  gave  him  that  high  and  godly  disregard 
which  cared  neither  for  pope,  emperor,  councils,  nor  any  other 
human  authority,  because  his  conscience  was  bound  by  God  and 
His  word  as  the  supreme  authority. 

This  man  could  contend  in  the  day  of  battle  as  but  few  men 
have  been  able  to  contend.  He  could  smite  the  apostasies  of  his 
time  with  the  mailed  fist.  Much  of  his  capacity  thus  to  strive, 
when  the  issues  were  of  fundamental  importance,  was  due  to  the 
fact  that  he  had  in  him  the  simplicity  and  joyous  trustfulness  of 
a  little  child,  and  bowed  always  with  implicit  and  beautiful  obedi- 
ence to  the  authority  of  the  Highest.  His  acceptance  of  the  Bible 
as  the  infallible  rule  of  faith  and  practice,  the  source  of  regen- 
erate character  and  of  all  man's  heavenly  hopes,  was  always  clear 
and  undoubting.  It  was  here  that  he  made  the  grand  discovery 
which  became  the  cornerstone  of  the  new  Protestant  temple,  the 
"material  principle"  of  the  Reformation,  that  the  just  shall  live 


142         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

by  faith — not  by  faith  in  self-righteous  works,  but  in  the  merits 
of  our  God  and  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ.  Accordingly  the  most 
constructive  work  of  Luther's  life,  and  to  which  he  gave  himself 
with  impetuous  ardor,  was  to  flood  Germany  with  the  Scriptures 
in  the  strong  and  virile  language  of  his  people,  to  the  creation  of 
which  he  was  the  chief  contributor. 

We  have  dwelt  thus  upon  Luther's  religious  struggles  chiefly 
because  this  is  the  factor  that  is  most  fundamental  in  its  import- 
ance in  estimating  his  work,  and  the  one  most  worthy  of  reaffir- 
mation and  reinterpretation  in  the  religious  life  of  our  day. 
Neither  the  demands  of  ecclesiastical  politics  nor  any  critical 
doubt  of  science  became  his  starting  point,  but  that  which  was 
distinctly,  profoundly  and  personally  religious.  It  was  a  genuine 
medieval  fear  of  the  wrath  of  God  which  drove  this  deeply  re- 
ligious young  man  into  the  Augustinian  monastery,  where,  in  the 
fierce  struggle  to  attain  to  mental  and  spiritual  tranquillity,  he 
tried  the  medieval  system  elaborated  by  the  Church  to  give  peace 
to  the  troubled  conscience,  and  experienced  as  but  few  men  have 
the  inadequacy  of  the  papal  system  of  redemption,  the  highest 
expression  of  which  was  monkish  self-abnegation.  Going  back 
to  the  fertile  fields  of  the  New  Testament,  he  found  release  from 
the  oppressive  weight  that  burdened  his  soul  in  the  grace  of  God 
and  justification  by  faith  alone.  Grasping  in  all  their  comforting 
and  transforming  significance  these  great  evangelical  truths,  he 
came  early  into  conflict  with  the  papal  huckstering  of  indulgences 
being  carried  on  by  the  Dominican,  John  Tetzel.  This  conflict 
precipitated  his  great  work  in  the  human  leadership  of  one  of  the 
few  most  important  movements  in  the  history  of  mankind — the 
Lutheran  Reformation.  His  inner  religious  life  is  the  practical 
exemplification  of  the  Reformation  doctrines,  the  deep  sense  of 
sin,  justification  by  faith  alone,  child-like  trust  and  fidelity  to  the 
word  of  God.  In  a  true  and  proper  co-ordination  he  grasped 
these  great  fundamental  truths  more  firmly  than  any  man  before 
or  since.     Others  have  formulated  them,  but  he  gave  them  voice. 

To  his  sound  and  evangelical  apprehension  of  the  Gospel,  his 
deep  religious  convictions,  and  the  popularity  of  his  gifts,  Luther 
added  an  industry  in  the  application  to  his  manifold  tasks  that  has 
not  been  surpassed.  From  the  nailing  up  of  the  theses  in  1517,  on 
to  his  death  in  1546,  he  always  had  pressing  work  to  do,  and  to 
that  work  he  addressed  himself  with  a  diligence  and  productivity 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  143 

that  are  amazing.  He  had  upon  him  the  care  of  the  Church,  the 
conduct  of  controversies,  the  training  of  preachers,  translating  the 
Scriptures,  writing  pamphlets,  books  and  commentaries,  giving 
counsel  to  princes  and  people,  in  addition  to  his  much-loved  work 
of  preaching,  which  he  prosecuted  at  home  and  wherever  he  went 
on  Sundays  and  during  the  week.  Both  the  quantity  of  his 
writings  and  their  immense  circulation  would  be  remarkable  even 
in  our  day,  much  more  so  in  the  sixteenth  century,  when  the  art 
of  printing  was  still  in  its  infancy.  In  one  year  he  wrote  and 
published  183  books  and  pamphlets,  so  busy  was  he  with  his  pen. 
He  attacked  the  papacy,  argued  with  bishops  and  cardinals,  and 
showed  their  errors  in  doctrine  and  practice.  And  all  this  in 
addition  to  his  work  as  professor  and  leader  of  many  widely  sep- 
arated minds.  He  was  constantly  bothered  with  the  petty 
scruples  and  small  questions  of  inferior  men  who  had  associated 
themselves  in  one  way  and  another  with  his  work.  Letters  from 
all  directions  pressed  for  immediate  decisions  on  different  points 
of  faith  and  Church  practice,  while  a  multitude  of  tender  con- 
sciences appealed  from  this  and  that  part  of  the  new  order  of 
things  in  worship,  each  wanting  an  answer  agreeable  to  the  in- 
quirer or  insurgent,  as  the  case  might  be. 

The  first  edition  of  his  collected  works  (commenced  in  1539  and 
finished  in  1558,  twelve  years  after  his  death),  numbers  twelve 
large  folio  volumes  in  the  German  language  and  seven  volumes  in 
Latin.  But  these  nineteen  volumes  contain  only  the  smallest  por- 
tion of  his  literary  work.  One  of  the  modern  editions  of  his 
works,  that  known  as  the  Erlangen  edition,  published  from  1862 
to  1865,  fills  sixty-seven  large  octavo  volumes  of  German  and 
thirty-eight  volumes  of  Latin  writings.  His  sermons,  letters, 
controversial  writings,  tracts  for  the  times,  commentaries,  books 
of  devotion,  and  theological  discussions,  present  a  variety  and 
range  of  subjects  associated  with  but  few  names  in  the  literary 
history  of  mankind. 

In  addition  to  his  academical  posts,  he  was,  by  the  appointment 
of  his  patron,  Staupitz,  made  visitor  of  the  monasteries  of  his 
province.  In  a  letter  to  a  friend  he  writes  with  a  touch  of 
humor  about  his  tasks  and  responsibilities :  "I  had  need,"  says 
he,  "of  two  secretaries  to  keep  up  my  correspondence ;  pity  my 
unhappy  fortune.  I  am  conventual  concionator,  table  preacher, 
director  of  studies ;  I  am  a  vicar,  or  in  few  words,  eleven  priors 


144         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

in  one ;  conservator  of  the  ponds  at  Litzkau,  pleader  and  assessor 
at  Torgau,  Pauline  reader  and  collector  of  Psalms ;  add  to  all 
these  the  assaults  of  the  world,  the  flesh  and  the  devil." 

His  strong  sense  of  humor,  his  satirical  vein,  combined  with  his 
deeply  religious  and  poetical  soul,  present  a  strong  combination  of 
literary  qualities,  which  enabled  him  to  produce  the  most  diversi- 
fied writings  of  any  man  of  his  time.  But  all  of  them,  widely  dif- 
ferent as  they  were  in  their  varied  aspects,  were  used  in  the  one 
great  service — the  religious  and  moral  regeneration  of  his  people. 

X 

Luther  was  pre-eminently  the  Reformer.  Beside  him  his  con- 
temporaries in  the  good  fight  of  reform  can  claim  but  the  second 
place.  They  were  in  a  very  large  measure  dependent  upon  him. 
He  was  the  Reformation,  chiefly  because  he  had  experienced  the 
movement  in  his  own  soul,  and  all  that  he  afterwards  said,  wrote 
or  did  in  Wittenberg,  Worms  and  elsewhere  was  but  the  out- 
growth of  that  one  primary  struggle  and  experience.  Out  of  his 
great  and  commanding  personality  the  Reformation  proceeded  as 
a  refreshing  stream  out  of  hidden  springs  in  a  great  rock. 

"If  we  compare  Luther  with  the  other  reformers  of  the  six- 
teenth century,"  says  Prof.  David  Schaff,  "he  appears  as  the  pre- 
eminent leader  of  the  Reformation.  To  say  this  is  not  to  dis- 
parage the  genius  or  the  work  of  Calvin,  Zwingli,  Knox  or 
Latimer.  But  in  two  respects  these  men  all  followed  Luther.  In 
point  of  time  they  spoke  after  he  had  spoken,  and  they  added  not 
a  single  fundamental  religious  principle  to  those  which  he  had 
announced.  Zwingli  did  not  enter  upon  his  work  as  a  reformer 
until  several  years  after  the  theses  were  posted.  Calvin  was  not 
'converted'  until  1533,  sixteen  years  after  the  posting  of  the 
theses.  The  Reformation  in  Scotland  did  not  fully  begin  under 
Knox's  leadership  until  1560,  fourteen  years  after  Luther  was  in 
his  grave.  As  for  the  English  reformation,  Luther's  books  were 
being  shipped  into  England  in  1519  and  1520  'in  vats  full,' 
whereas  the  first  printed  English  New  Testament,  that  of  Will- 
iam Tyndale,  was  not  published  till  1526,  more  than  four  years 
after  Luther's  German  translation  had  appeared.  Cranmer  was 
first  a  Lutheran,  and  exerted  himself  to  have  England  adopt  the 
Lutheran  principles  as   stated  in   the  Augsburg  Confession  of 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  145 

1530.  It  was  the  Augustinian  monk  of  Wittenberg  who  inau- 
gurated the  movement  and  marked  out  the  doctrinal  path  it  should 
take."  These  leaders  of  the  movement  to  reform  the  Church 
differed  widely  in  temperament  and  in  their  approach  to  truth. 
Luther  was  poetical  and  mystical,  Zwingli  was  rationalizing  and 
practical.  Luther  looked  at  coming  events  through  the  medium 
of  faith;  Zwingli  through  the  medium  of  human  understanding. 
Luther  was  conservative  in  his  attitude  toward  the  past ;  Zwingli 
was  iconoclastic,  finding  it  easy  to  dissociate  himself  from  the 
past  and  to  discard  what  had  been.  Luther  came  to  the  truth 
of  the  doctrines  of  salvation  through  the  medium  of  his  personal 
religious  experience ;  Zwingli  always  under  the  influence  of  that 
humanism  of  which  he  was  enraptured. 

Calvin  differed  from  Luther  in  some  important  particulars. 
He  was  not,  as  in  the  case  of  Luther,  a  peasant  by  birth,  and 
had  no  experience  of  poverty  in  his  early  life.  In  his  personal 
characteristics  Calvin  cannot  compare  with  Luther  in  geniality  of 
temperament,  in  natural  and  popular  eloquence,  in  imaginative 
vision,  in  tenderness,  humor  and  pathos,  in  that  indefinable  grace 
which  adorns  all  that  it  touches,  and  in  that  contact  with  the  life 
of  humanity  which  made  of  the  one  a  popular  leader  as  con- 
trasted with  more  of  the  spirit  of  the  recluse  in  the  other.  In 
religion,  the  moving  impulse  with  Luther  was  the  sense  of  sin, 
in  Calvin  it  was  the  love  of  truth  alike  as  an  ideal  and  as  reality. 
Luther  found  in  the  Scriptures  a  way  of  escape  from  sin ;  Calvin, 
not  only  that,  but  an  ideal  social  and  civic  state  which  men  are 
bound  to  realize  here  and  now.  Luther's  passion  was  to  believe 
and  teach  the  true  way  of  salvation ;  Calvin,  not  only  that,  but 
to  build  a  system  and  a  state  in  the  image  of  the  truth  of  God. 
Luther's  fundamental  thought  is  justification  by  faith  alone,  or  the 
mode  in  which  the  guilty  man  may  be  made  right  with  God ;  with 
Calvin  it  is  the  absoluteness  and  sufficiency  of  the  will  of  God,  as 
the  gracious  will  which  purposes  and  achieves  salvation. 

In  contrast  with  the  vacillation  and  trimming  of  Erasmus, 
Luther  was  steady,  well  poised,  consistent  and  established.  Eras- 
mus had  no  thought  of  being  a  martyr  for  the  truth,  and  he  says 
so  plainly.  His  cowardice  reaches  its  culmination  when  he  says 
of  himself:  "I  never  taught  any  erroneous  doctrines,  that  I 
know  of,  and  never  will,  nor  will  I  be  an  associate  or  leader  in 
any  tumults.     Let  others  affect  martyrdom ;  for  my  part  I  hold 


146         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

myself  unworthy  of  that  honor."  His  constant  efforts  at  neu- 
trality and  negation  led  Luther  to  declare  that  "He  will  die  like 
Moses  in  the  land  of  Moab.,,  While  vigorously  attacking  the 
monks  and  satirizing  the  abuses  of  the  Church,  Erasmus  was 
afraid  to  side  openly  with  the  Reformer,  who  was  willing  to  fol- 
low out  to  their  final  consequences  the  newly  discovered  truths  of 
the  Gospel. 

In  one  of  his  "Essays  in  Ecclesiastical  Biography"  Sir  James 
Stephen  has  summed  up  Erasmus  as  contrasted  with  Luther  in 
these  words:  "He  belonged  to  that  class*of  actors  on  the  scene 
of  life-  who  have  always  appeared  as  the  harbingers  of  great 
social  changes ;  men  gifted  with  the  power  to  discern  and  the 
hardihood  to  proclaim  truths  of  which  they  want  the  courage  to 
encounter  the  infallible  results ;  who  outrun  their  generation  in 
thought,  but  lag  behind  in  action ;  players  at  the  sport  of  reform, 
so  long  as  reform  itself  appears  at  an  indefinite  distance ;  more 
ostentatious  than  anxious  for  the  well-being  of  mankind ;  dream- 
ing that  the  dark  page  of  history  may  hereafter  become  a  fairy 
tale,  in  which  enchantment  will  bring  to  pass  a  glorious  catas- 
trophe unbought  by  intervening  strife,  and  agony  and  suffering; 
and  therefore  overwhelmed  with  alarm  when  the  edifice  begins  to 
totter  of  which  their  own  hands  have  sapped  the  foundation. 
Erasmus  was  a  reformer  until  the  Reformation  became  a  fearful 
reality;  a  propagator  of  the  Scriptures  until  men  betook  them- 
selves to  the  study  and  application  of  them ;  depreciating  the  mere 
outward  forms  of  religion  until  they  had  come  to  be  estimated  at 
their  real  value ;  in  short,  a  learned,  ingenious,  benevolent, 
amiable,  timid,  irresolute  man,  who,  compelled  to  bear  the  re- 
sponsibility, resigned  to  others  the  glory  of  rescuing  the  human 
mind  from  the  bondage  of  a  thousand  years." 

No  two  men  could  be  more  unlike  at  once  in  intellectual  aspir- 
ation and  moral  temper  than  Luther  and  Erasmus.  Luther 
wanted  dogmatic  certainty  in  all  matters  of  faith,  while  Erasmus, 
latitudinarian  and  philosophical  in  religious  opinion,  was  indif- 
ferent as  to  exact  truth,  was  cautious,  subtle,  refined  and 
cowardly.  Erasmus  made  his  contribution  to  the  flourishing  rise 
of  letters  and  the  right  understanding  of  the  Scriptures,  but  when 
the  day  of  battle  came  on  he  plainly  showed  that  he  had  not  the 
courage,  the  candor  or  the  consistency  to  become  a  reformer. 
If    covert    and    ingenious    sarcasm,    subtle    point    and    pungent 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  147 

dilemma  could  have  overthrown  the  papal  supremacy,  then  had 
Erasmus  been  a  valiant  and  successful  reformer.  But  that  pecul- 
iar medieval  supremacy  was  elaborated  with  too  much  of  human 
wisdom  to  be  overturned  with  that  sort  of  weapons.  The  con- 
flict called  for  the  hot  temper,  the  fearless  candor  and  that  com- 
manding confidence  in  God  and  His  Word  which  made  of  Luther 
the  man  who  trusted  the  truth  to  the  final  issvte  rather  than  juggle 
with  it  at  any  point.  Erasmus  was  strong  in  denial,  but  weak  in 
affirmation.  He  saw  the  necessity  of  the  conflict,  but  was  desti- 
tute of  those  elementary  natural  and  spiritual  forces  which  alone 
can  bring  forth  the  grand  creative  deeds  of  history.  Men  like 
Erasmus  need  apologists,  whereas  men  like  Luther  trust  God,  do 
what  He  sent  them  to  do  and  are  justified  by  their  works. 

That  the  Reformer  was  a  primate  among  men  in  his  personal 
force,  his  mental  endowments,  his  spiritual  insight  and  capacity 
as  interpreter  of  truth  and  leader  of  men,  is  widely  affirmed  by 
men  of  all  varieties  of  religious  views.  In  their  places,  one  after 
another,  they  rise  to  affirm  the  greatness  of  Luther  in  his  place 
and  work  among  the  sons  of  men.  This  is  the  eloquent  testi- 
mony of  Dollinger,  the  old  Catholic,  the  fairest  of  Roman  his- 
torians: "It  was  Luther's  overpowering  greatness  and  wonderful 
many-sidedness  of  mind  that  made  him  the  man  of  his  age  and 
people.  Nor  was  there  a  German  who  had  such  an  intuitive 
knowledge  of  his  countrymen  and  was  again  so  completely  pos- 
sessed, not  to  say  absorbed,  by  the  national  sentiment,  as  the 
Augustinian  monk  of  Wittenberg.  The  mind  and  spirit  of  the 
Germans  were  in  his  hand  what  the  lyre  is  in  the  hands  of  the 
skilled  musician.  He  gave  them  more  than  any  man  in  Christian 
days  ever  gave  his  people — language,  popular  manuals  of  instruc- 
tion, Bible,  hymnology.  All  his  opponents  could  offer  in  place  of 
it  was  insipid,  colorless  and  feeble  by  the  side  of  his  transporting 
eloquence.  They  stammered,  he  spoke.  He  alone  has  impressed 
the  indelible  stamp  of  his  mind  on  the  German  language  and  the 
German  intellect,  and  even  those  among  us  who  hold  him  in  re- 
ligious detestation  as  the  great  heresiarch  and  seducer  of  the 
nation  are  constrained  in  spite  of  themselves  to  speak  with  his 
words  and  think  with  his  thoughts." 

Thomas  Carlyle,  much  of  a  cynic,  but  wonderful  interpreter  of 
men  and  movements,  says  of  this  man :  "I  call  this  Luther  a  truly 
great  man — one  of  our  most  lovable  and  precious  men.     Great, 


148         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

not  as  a  hewn  obelisk;  but  as  an  Alpine  mountain,  so  simple, 
honest,  spontaneous,  not  setting  up  to  be  great  at  all ;  there  for 
quite  another  purpose  than  being  great.  A  right  spiritual  hero 
and  prophet ;  once  more,  a  true  son  of  nature  and  fact,  for  whom 
these  centuries  and  many  more  that  are  to  come  yet,  will  be 
thankful  to  heaven."'  In  an  eloquent  and  oft-quoted  passage  an- 
other strong  writer  has  said,  "Kings  and  emperors  have  made  pil- 
grimages to  the  tomb  of  Luther,  and  nations  cherish  in  their  hearts 
his  imperishable  name.  Charles  V,  Frederick  the  Great,  Peter  of 
Russia,  Wallenstein,  and,  lastly,  Napoleon,  visited  the  spot  where 
the  remains  of  the  Reformer  lie ;  and  even  these  names,  the 
sound  of  which  still  shake  the  casements  of  the  world,  seem 
but  ciphers  beside  the  dust  of  Martin  Luther."  This  is  the 
estimate  of  the  late  Philip  Schaff,  the  chieftain  among  Reformed 
ecclesiastical  historians :  "Luther's  greatness  is  not  that  of  a 
polished  work  of  art,  but  of  an  Alpine  mountain  with  towering 
peaks,  rough  granite  blocks,  bracing  air,  fresh  fountains,  and 
green  meadows.  *  *  *  He  roused  by  his  trumpet  voice  the 
Church  from  her  slumber ;  he  broke  the  yoke  of  papal  tyranny ; 
he  recognized  Christian  freedom ;  he  reopened  the  fountain  of 
God's  holy  Word  to  all  the  people,  and  directed  the  Christians  to 
Christ,  their  only  Master.  This  is  his  crowning  merit  and  his  en- 
during monument."  The  calumnies  which  have  been  poured 
forth  against  the  memory  of  Luther  have  been  vile,  numerous  and 
vindictive,  and  diligently  revamped  from  generation  to  generation. 
They  have  all  been  met  and  vanquished  by  the  famous  Arch- 
deacon Julius  Charles  Hare,  the  author  of  the  "Vindication  of 
Luther."  This  is  his  estimate:  "To  some  readers  it  may  seem 
that  I  have  spoken  with  exaggerated  admiration  of  Luther.  No 
man  ever  lived  whose  whole  heart  and  soul  and  life  have  been 
laid  bare  as  his  have  been  to  the  eyes  of  mankind.  Open  as  the 
sky,  bold  and  fearless  as  the  storm,  he  gave  utterance  to  all  his 
feelings,  all  his  thoughts.  *  *  *  No  man  has  ever  been  ex- 
posed to  so  severe  a  trial ;  no  man  was  ever  placed  in  such  dif- 
ficult circumstances,  or  assailed  by  such  manifold  temptations. 
And  how  has  he  come  out  of  the  trial  ?  Through  the  power  of 
faith,  under  the  guardian  care  of  his  Heavenly  Master,  he  was 
enabled  to  stand  through  life ;  and  still  he  stands,  and  will  con- 
tinue to  stand,  firmly  rooted  in  the  love  of  all  who  really  know 
him."     It  is  of  Luther  that  the  renowned  Goethe  speaks  thus : 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  149 

"We  scarcely  know  what  we  owe  to  Luther,  and  the  Reformation 
in  general.  We  are  freed  from  the  fetters  of  spiritual  narrow- 
mindedness  ;  we  have,  in  consequence  of  our  increasing  culture, 
become  capable  of  turning  back  to  the  fountain-head,  and  of  com- 
prehending Christianity  in  its  purity.  We  have  again  the  courage 
to  stand  with  firm  feet  upon  God's  earth,  and  to  feel  ourselves  in 
our  divinely  endowed  human  nature. 

"To  Luther  more  than  to  any  other  man  since  St.  Paul,  the 
Church  of  Christ  is  indebted  for  its  grasp  of  two  essential  prin- 
ciples;  the  first  is  the  fact  of  justification,  or  forgiveness  of  sin, 
by  faith  and  not  of  works.  The  second  is  that  the  Divine  Word 
is  supreme  in  all  faith  and  practice,  and  in  all  organization  of  the 
Church.  More  today  than  to  any  other  man  of  eighteen  hun- 
dred years  men  owe  to  Luther  freedom  of  thought,  of  speech,  of 
conscience,  of  action;  the  right  to  worship  God  according  to  what 
conscience  indicates."  Many  years  ago  one  of  the  strongest 
writers  of  his  day  in  the  London  Quarterly  Review  wrote  these 
graphic  words  of  portrayal :  "There  is  no  second  Mont  Blanc  ;  the 
present  monarch  would  in  that  case  doff  his  crown.  So  there  are 
no  two  Luthers.  Luther  is  alone — alone  in  capacity  at  once  to 
dare  and  to  do,  alone  in  device  and  achievement,  alone  in  hardi- 
hood and  patience,  alone  in  boundless  resources  and  exhaustless 
buoyancy,  alone  in  the  majesty  of  his  self-reliance  and  in  the  gen- 
ialness  of  his  wide  sympathies,  alone  in  untiring  industry  and  un- 
flagging perseverance,  alone  in  lofty  faith  and  never-clouded 
hope.  Such  was  the  Luther  of  the  Reformation,  the  quondam 
(former)  monk,  the  newly-awakened  and  never-dying  man." 
Today  no  one  who  has  noted  the  transitions  from  age  to  age,  since 
the  period  of  the  Reformation,  will  call  in  question  the  prophecy 
of  the  late  Dr.  C.  P.  Krauth :  "Four  potentates  ruled  the  mind  of 
Europe  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  the  Emperor,  Erasmus, 
the  Pope  and  Luther.  The  Pope  wanes,  Erasmus  is  little,  the 
Emperor  is  nothing,  but  Luther  abides  as  a  power  for  all  times. 
His  image  casts  itself  upon  the  current  of  ages,  as  the  mountain 
mirrors  itself  in  the  river  that  winds  at  its  foot — the  mighty  fixing 
itself  immutably  upon  the  changing."  Our  country  has  known  no 
more  accomplished  historian  than  the  late  Prof.  George  P.  Fisher, 
of  Yale,  who  says  :  "What  is  it  in  Luther  that,  after  four  hundred 
years  are  gone,  stirs  the  heart  of  the  Protestant  nations?  It  is 
the  great  heart  and  the  great  mind,  united  together.     *     *     * 


150         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

His  catechisms,  his  sermons,  his  printed  comments  on  portions  of 
Scripture,  his  spirit-stirring  hymns,  his  controversial  treatises  and 
tracts,  productions,  all  of  them,  called  out  by  the  exigencies  of 
the  time,  and  most  effective  for  their  ends,  constitute  a  copious 
literature."  Of  him,  one  historian,  Hallam,  says:  "In  the  his- 
tory of  the  Reformation,  Luther  is  incomparably  the  greatest 
name,"  while  another,  Ridpath,  says,  "He  was  regarded  as  the 
exemplar  and  epitome  of  the  Reformation.  To  him  the  other 
leaders  of  Protestantism  looked  as  to  a  general  whose  right  it  is 
to  command."  Speaking  of  the  great  Reformer,  Dr.  Alfred 
Plummer,  the  able  author  of  the  "Continental  Reformation," 
says :  "Luther's  influence  on  religious  and  political  ideas,  on 
literature,  on  social  life,  and  on  the  map  of  Europe,  has  been 
enormous,  and  this  influence  has  been  won  largely  without  effort 
on  his  part — through  his  massive  character,  through  his  sincerity, 
earnestness,  unselfishness,  and  above  all  these,  through  his  splen- 
did courage.  We  may  differ  widely  from  some  of  his  opinions, 
but  we  live  in  a  world  which  is  a  wiser  and  better  world  because 
of  Luther's  work."  Comparing  him  with  the  great  Apostle  to 
the  Gentiles,  Dean  Farrar,  in  his  "Life  of  St.  Paul,"  says  that, 
"As  a  reformer  who  altered  the  entire  course  of  history,  Luther 
alone  resembles  him.  What  the  Reformer  did  when  he  nailed 
his  theses  to  the  door  of  the  cathedral  of  Wittenberg,  that  St. 
Paul  did  when  he  wrote  his  epistle  to  the  Galatians.  It  was  the 
manifesto  of  emancipation ;  it  marked  an  epoch  in  history." 
"Blessed  be  the  day  of  Martin  Luther's  birth !  It  should  be  a 
festival  second  only  to  that  of  the  nativity  of  Jesus  Christ,"  says 
Robert  Southey,  the  crowned  poet  of  England.  And  the  Ameri- 
can, Edwin  D.  Mead,  says :  "Luther  is  the  most  influential  and 
significant  man  in  the  spiritual  history  of  mankind  since  Christ." 
The  German  Catholic  scholar,  Friedrich  von  Schlegel  says:  "I 
think  there  are  few,  even  of  his  own  disciples,  wrho  appreciate 
Luther  highly  enough."  We  give  these  citations,  not  as  ex- 
pressions of  hero  wrorship,  but  as  the  sober  estimate  of  the  great- 
ness of  the  place  of  one  of  the  outstanding  spiritual  heroes  of 
mankind. 

The  German  Reformation,  especially  in  its  beginnings,  is  but 
little  more  than  Luther's  biography,  and  no  man  could  have  been 
better  fitted  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  mighty  task  which  he 
carried  forward  to  such  a  successful  issue.       If  the  estimates  of 


CHIEF  FACTOR  [N  THE  MOVEMENT  151 

such  men  as  we  have  cited  (and  they  could  be  multiplied  almost 
indefinitely)  are  fair  and  just,  it  may  be  doubted  if  any  of  the 
religious  leaders  of  the  Christian  Church  since  the  days  of  St. 
Paul  were  more  richly  endowed  than  he  with  gifts  of  the  highest 
order,  and  that  peculiar  co-ordination  of  qualifications  which 
fitted  him  for  his  great  place  in  human  history.  If  he  was  great 
and  industrious  as  a  writer,  he  was  equally  great  and  tireless  as 
a  preacher.  The  freshness  of  his  thought,  his  grasp  of  the  great 
truths  of  the  Gospel,  his  rare  insight  into  the  meaning  of  the 
Scriptures,  the  simplicity  and  directness  of  his  speech,  together 
with  the  mastery  of  his  mother  tongue,  vivid  imagery,  sincerity, 
earnestness,  fervor  and  pathos,  never  failed  to  arrest  and  keep  the 
attention  of  the  people  who  heard  him.  He  who  would  under- 
stand the  secret  of  Luther's  spiritual  greatness  and  masterful  re- 
ligious influence  may  find  the  key  to  both  in  these  words  written 
to  one  who  suffered,  and  but  a  few  months  before  his  own  death : 
''God  has  given  us  His  Son  Jesus  Christ,  that  we  may  daily  think 
of  Him,  for  apart  from  Christ  everything  is  misery  and  death, 
but  in  Him  is  nothing  but  peace  and  joy." 

In  his  attitude  toward  the  truth  there  was  an  absolute  destitu- 
tion of  mental  duplicity,  and  in  its  statement  in  language  a  mani- 
fest incapacity  for  ambiguity.  When  he  took  the  oath  of  a 
doctor  of  divinity,  "I  swear  to  defend  the  evangelical  truth  with 
all  my  might,"  his  conscience  scorned  mental  reservation  and  he 
felt  a  tremendous  eternal  obligation  not  to  seek  peace,  like  so 
many  other  monks,  by  easy  indifference,  but  to  battle  with  fiery 
impatience  and  indignation  against  all  forms  of  error.  Dissimula- 
tion and  hypocrisy  were  not  in  him.  He  hated  them  with  a 
vehemence  that  was  inexpressible.  "If  I  despised  the  pope," 
he  says,  "as  those  men  really  despise  him  in  their  breasts  who 
praise  him  with  their  lips,  I  should  have  trembled  lest  the  earth 
should  have  instantly  opened  and  swallowed  me  up  alive,  like 
Korah  and  his  company." 

The  difference  between  Luther  and  Leo  X,  the  reigning  pope 
whom  he  encountered,  was  that  the  one  was  a  reality  and  the 
other  a  sham.  Under  the  friar's  cowl  there  throbbed  an  earnest 
and  sincere  heart  conscious  of  high  responsibilities,  afraid  to 
speak  or  act  a  lie,  believing  with  all  his  soul  that  Christ  was  the 
Son  of  the  living  God  and  that  no  man  could  be  redeemed  from 
sin  and  death  except  by  His  intercession  and  merits.      On  the 


152         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

other  hand,  under  the  Pope's  triple  tiara  there  was  an  accom- 
plished brain,  but  one  that  was  false,  insincere  and  unbelieving. 
"Every  age,"  whispers  Leo  to  the  friends  about  his  throne, 
"every  age  knows  how  useful  this  fable  of  Christ  has  been  to  us 
and  ours."  It  was  the  hollowness  and  profanity  and  luxury,  the 
beastly  ignorance  and  scandals  of  the  priesthood,  that  at  last 
aroused  the  reality  that  was  in  Luther's  manhood,  shocked  him 
into  resistance  and  caused  him  to  thunder  out  anathemas  against 
all  dishonest  and  insincere  deceivers  of  the  people.  His  convic- 
tions reflected  a  strength  of  character  that  was  exceptional  in  his 
day.  To  him  it  seemed  to  be  natural  to  hold  the  fortress  of 
truth  with  unconquerable  tenacity.  Had  he  been  more  amiable 
and  less  heroic  in  decision,  the  Reformation  in  his  hand  would 
doubtless  have  gone  down  in  many  a  crisis  when  he  seemed  to 
stand  alone  as  its  strong  tower  of  strength. 

Luther  had,  indeed,  faults  and  weaknesses  too  manifest  and 
prominent  to  be  concealed.  His  nature  was  too  strong,  some- 
times vehement,  for  uniform  evenness  and  consistency.  He  com- 
mitted errors.  He  occasionally  misjudged  with  deplorable  con- 
sequences. He  was  combative  and  sometimes  violent  in  his  intol- 
erance toward  error.  His  zeal  for  the  faith  ran  at  times  into  what 
looked  much  like  an  unseemly  passion,  the  steadfastness  to  his 
convictions  into  apparent  wilfulness  and  stubbornness,  his  abomi- 
nation for  the  shams  and  apostasies  of  the  Church  and  its  chief 
representatives  into  disdain  and  abuse.  But  all  candid  men  know 
that  Luther  was  governed  by  no  mere  considerations  of  policy, 
but  acted  with  a  good  conscience.  Errors  of  opinion  and  con- 
duct, had  they  been  tenfold  greater  than  they  were,  would  not 
suffice  to  eclipse  the  brilliancy  or  permanency  of  his  fame.  His 
greatness  belongs  to  his  character.  He  was  great  intellectually, 
but  that  which  most  of  all  elicits  continual  enthusiasm  at  the 
mention  of  his  name  is  his  heroism.  Courage,  conscientious 
fidelity  to  the  truth,  obedience  to  the  voice  of  God,  the  setting  of 
duty  always  before  expediency — these  are  the  factors  that  dom- 
inated a  deeply  religious  nature  and  a  peculiarly  faithful  em- 
bodiment of  strong  national  traits.  In  himself  he  embodied  the 
chivalry,  the  patriotism,  the  lyric  talent,  the  domestic  affection 
and  the  religious  depth  of  the  German  mind  and  heart.  His 
words  thrilled  the  men  of  his  time,  and  today  are  in  large  part  as 
fresh  and  living  and  popular  as  when  he  lived.     They  made  of 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  153 

him,  as  the  late  Dean  Farrar  has  affirmed,  "The  Reformer  who 
altered  the  entire  course  of  history." 

XI 

There  are  two  classes  of  particularly  influential  men  in  the 
world's  history,  the  practical  men  who  do  things  and  the  men  who 
propagate  great  ideas.  Luther  belonged  primarily  to  the  latter 
class,  at  least  in  the  beginning  of  his  career  as  a  reformer.  His 
mind  was  dominated  by  certain  great  and  fundamental  ideas,  cer- 
tain basic  truths  in  religion,  and  these  he  wished  to  make  known 
to  the  life  of  his  day.  The  history  of  his  people  brings  him  be- 
fore us  for  the  first  time  in  his  conspicuous  work  as  a  reformer, 
in  doing  something  that  is  specially  practical.  It  is  a  scene  of 
action  that  confronts  us  at  Wittenberg  on  October  31,  1517.  But 
a  careful  study  of  his  biography  shows  that  even  then  the  doc- 
trinal was  dominating  what  he  was  doing.  All  he  was  and  all  he 
did  are  rooted  at  last  in  his  strong  grasp  on  central  principles  and 
his  relentless  adherence  to  them.  He  had  a  sublime  faith  in  those 
principles  and  in  their  power  to  work  out  all  desirable  and  whole- 
some results.  Fanatics  and  extremists  sprang  up  on  every  side, 
but  Luther  maintained  through  it  all  a  serene  confidence.  Sorely 
tried  by  their  extravagances,  he  uniformly  cast  himself  back  on 
the  Word  as  the  instrument  for  righting  things.  Carlstadt  and 
the  image  breakers  at  Wittenberg,  Munzer,  Stubner,  the  illum- 
inated prophets  of  Zwickau,  the  revolutionary  peasants  of  Thur- 
ingia,  the  Anabaptists  and  their  exaggerations,  all  of  which  served 
to  divert  the  Reformation  from  its  regular  and  orderly  course, 
which  disgraced  it  by  monstrous  associations,  aroused  the  re- 
proaches of  the  papists  and  made  the  conservatives  more  cau- 
tious— all  these  troubled  Luther  and  increased  his  burdens.  But 
this  was  his  constant  assurance,  that  while  the  storms  might  roar 
and  beat  upon  the  ship,  he  knew  that  he  was  in  the  right  path 
and  that  ail  would  come  out  well.  Shallow,  noisy  men  had  taken 
advantage  of  his  absence  at  the  Wartburg  and  had  gone  off  into 
those  excesses  which  were  revealed  to  his  own  eyes,  when,  upon 
his  return  to  Wittenberg  in  1522,  he  came  into  the  town  church 
to  see  the  fragmentary  blocks  of  the  old  statuary  that  had  adorned 
that  famous  building  strewn  upon  the  floor.  But  all  this  scandal, 
confusion  and  discord  did  not  in  any  measure  loosen  his  grip  at 


154         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

any  time  upon  his  great  central  truth  of  salvation  by  faith  and  the 
associated  doctrines  of  the  New  Testament. 

He  came  to  Worms  in  April,  1521,  in  the  full  assurance  of 
triumph,  knowing  that  he  had  given  a  challenge  that  could  not  be 
answered  and  demanding  a  proof  that  he  knew  could  never  be 
given.  He  went  away  in  the  full  assurance  of  an  intellectual  and 
spiritual  triumph  for  himself  and  an  intellectual  and  spiritual 
defeat  for  the  representatives  of  the  papacy,  who  had  realized 
their  incapacity  for  answering  his  challenge.  The  ground  of  his 
assurance  at  the  beginning  and  at  the  ending  was  that  he  had  a 
living  perception  of  the  meaning  of  the  Gospel  of  forgiveness 
through  Christ.  This  truth  of  justification  by  faith  alone  he  saw 
that  the  Lord  and  His  apostles  taught.  It  had  the  sanction  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  for  him  there  was  no  higher  authority  and  no 
human  power  that  could  dictate  an  interpretation  different  from 
that  which  had  brought  life  and  light  to  his  own  soul.  He  stood 
before  men  who  were  clever,  active,  shrewd  and  elegant,  with  a 
powerful  and  strikingly  religious  mind.  He  stood  before  them 
possessed  of  an  intensity  of  religious  belief  and  ardor  to  which 
ordinary  men  had  nothing  comparable,  and  confuted  them  all  be- 
cause of  the  momentum  of  his  confidence  in  great  and  over- 
shadowing aspects  of  the  truth.  This  it  was,  again,  that  marked 
the  real  difference  between  Luther  and  his  brilliant  contemporary, 
Erasmus,  the  lukewarm  indifferentist  and  the  time-serving  vic- 
time  of  his  own  vacillation. 

Of  all  the  great  men  of  history  no  one  is  more  paradoxical  than 
Luther.  In  the  richness  of  his  endowments,  his  many-sidedness, 
his  frankness  in  the  communication  of  his  experiences ;  as  man, 
poet,  musician,  preacher,  theologian ;  he  seems  not  only  provi- 
dentially chosen  for  the  work  to  which  God  called  him,  but  even 
in  the  contradictions  of  his  nature  to  have  been  qualified  in  every 
way  for  his  tasks.  In  a  singular  combination  he  had  the  qualities 
which  were  needed  to  make  a  new  world.  He  had  force — the 
force  of  a  big  nature,  with  vast  depths  of  feeling  and  of  tender- 
ness, combined  with  an  intensity  of  personal  conviction  seldom 
seen  among  men.  He  seems  to  stand  up  among  the  best  of  his 
day  and  the  ages  preceding,  a  revelation  of  the  strength  and 
beauty  of  the  new  world  of  truth,  the  embodiment  of  individual 
force  in  his  intellect,  conscience  and  will.  But  this  force  was  not 
so  individual  as  to  separate  him  from  his  fellow-men.     To  them 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  155 

he  spoke,  as  if,  gathering  in  himself  all  the  passions  and  spirit 
of  his  time,  he  felt  and  expressed  all  that  most  moved  their 
minds  and  hearts.  Dealing  truly  with  others,  he  also  dealt  truly 
with  himself.  Few  men  have  had  so  great  self-knowledge, 
and  fewer  still  have  expressed  that  self-knowledge  with  as  much 
freedom.  He  was  always  frank  and  simple,  courageous  and 
truthful,  but  was  utterly  destitute  of  craftiness  and  cunning. 
While  he  lived  no  man  wielded  such  immense  power,  but  with  it 
all  vanity  was  not  in  him.  Few  men  have  been  so  open  to  the 
attacks  of  his  enemies,  and  no  great  man  who  has  lived  has  it 
been  easier  to  attack  and  misrepresent  than  he,  while  at  the  same 
time  but  few  men  have  elicited  such  unstinted  admiration  and 
affection  from  friends.  Passion,  indeed,  was  one  of  his  strong 
features,  but  it  was  always  passion  without  dissimulation.  No 
man  was  more  submissive  to  the  divine  Word  and  Power,  but 
in  his  relations  to  the  powers  of  the  world  and  the  Church  he 
did  not  know  what  it  was  to  hestitate  or  waver.  He  seems  to 
have  been  incapable  of  trimming,  and  there  are  no  indications  of 
his  ever  in  his  controversial  career  having  said  to  himself,  "Shall 
I  say  this  or  not?"  He  was  an  agitator,  but  vastly  more  than  an 
agitator.  He  was  a  real  agent  of  reconstruction.  He  had  weight 
and  solidity,  but  these  were  always  associated  with  practical 
power.  He  could  not  only  preach  a  theology,  but  did  much  to 
establish  and  fix  its  metes  and  bounds.  He  led  in  one  of  the  most 
revolutionary  movements  in  the  history  of  mankind,  and  yet  was  a 
conservative  even  to  the  extent  of  stubbornness.  Fie  was  not  the 
founder  of  a  Protestantism  that  had  no  respect  for  the  past,  the 
marks  of  which  were  a  rapacious  and  senseless  iconoclasm.  Step 
by  step  in  his  religious  development  he  became  the  antithesis  of 
Rome,  but  he  did  not  advocate  that  the  reformed  Church  should 
cut  off  its  continuity  with  the  Church  of  Augustine  and  Anselm, 
and  much  less  with  the  Church  of  Paul.  He  was  no  leader  of  a 
merely  negative  movement,  but  the  positive  leader  in  the  reasser- 
tion  of  living  truths  which  found  their  basis  only  in  the  Word  of 
God.  With  him  the  right  of  private  judgment  was  never  inde- 
pendent of  the  frontiers  established  in  the  Scriptures.  He  did 
something  more  than  protest  against  the  abuses  of  Romanism. 
Fie  also  claimed  and  reasserted  as  its  divine  right  the  power  of  the 
human  mind  under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  discern  the 
truths  of  the  Bible. 


156         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

Thus  the  practical  Reformer  was  essentially  conservative  and 
moderate.  To  some  who  are  acquainted  only  with  his  opinions 
on  isolated  subjects,  that  may  seem  a  surprising  statement.  But 
anyone  who  impartially  considers  Luther's  whole  work  as  a  Re- 
former will  recognize  the  justice  of  the  estimate.  No  religious 
leader  has  been  more  careful  to  insist  on  the  paramount  im- 
portance and  the  sacred  duty  of  holding  with  an  immovable  grasp 
to  what  is  of  fundamental  importance  and  of  maintaining  both 
tolerance  and  charity  where  diversity  is  possible  and  desirable. 
He  is  an  example  of  an  intense  conservative  summoned  to  a 
radical  reformation  of  Church  doctrine  and  life.  He  obeyed  the 
apostolic  injunction  to  hold  fast  that  which  is  good  and  estab- 
lished, but  he  was  so  modern  that  today  none  of  the  reformers 
and  leaders  of  the  Church  since  Paul  appeals  to  that  which  is  uni- 
versal in  the  heart  of  man  as  do  the  sermons  and  popular  re- 
ligious writings  of  Luther.  His  spirit  was  sometimes  extrava- 
gant and  excessive,  and  in  some  of  his  writings  one  is  startled 
by  the  unmeasured  violence  of  his  language.  But  in  his  rude, 
and  at  times  boisterous,  speech  there  was  no  resentment.  He  had 
a  temper  that  was  rudely  frank,  and  a  tongue  that  was  always 
ready  to  say  with  promptness  and  boldness  what  the  man  back  of 
it  believed,  and  an  argumentative  fervor  that  sometimes  passed 
beyond  the  frontiers  of  delicacy  and  good  taste.  But  Luther's 
coarseness  in  speech  was  that  of  his  age  rather  than  of  the  in- 
dividual. In  his  evidently  enjoyed  sallies  at  the  follies  of  monk- 
ish superstition,  the  degeneracy  of  popes  and  cardinals  and  the 
apostasies  of  the  Church,  there  was  no  admixture  of  bitterness. 
About  Luther  there  was  none  of  that  covert  and  ingenious  dis- 
simulation we  may  frequently  find  in  Erasmus.  He  was  blunt, 
but  never  cynical  in  the  day  of  battle.  His  speech  was  often- 
times strong,  but  not  harsh.  He  could  talk  back,  and  it  must  be 
confessed,  when  we  remember  some  of  the  violence  of  his  assail- 
ants, that  he  was  frequently  stimulated  to  exercise  both  his 
privilege  and  his  capacity.  He  was  called  at  various  times  "the 
most  pernicious  pest  that  ever  attacked  the  flock  of  Christ,"  "a 
poisonous  serpent,"  "a  wolf  of  hell,"  "a  limb  of  Satan,"  a  man 
"rotten  in  mind"  and  "execrable  in  purpose." 

He  was  humble,  but  down  deep  in  his  heart  there  was  a  spirit 
of  defiance,  which,  on  occasion,  rose  up  to  assert  itself  against 
such  a  classification  of  the  bad  things  we  have  noted  as  defining 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  157 

who  and  what  the  Reformer  was,  as  well  as  against  the  emperor, 
pope,  cardinals  and  lesser  prelates,  who  believed  all  of  them  and 
more  to  be  correct.  Considering  the  many  abusive  and  suggestive 
names  he  was  called,  it  is  not  entirely  unexpected  that  in  a  rude 
age  as  good  a  man  as  Luther  said  in  reply  some  violent  things, 
and  that  he  was  not  unsparing  in  even  decking  out  some  of  his 
opponents  with  long  ears. 

He  had  a  brilliant  and  fertile  gift  of  humor,  but  with  it  an 
unique  combination  of  depth,  even  bordering  at  times  on  mel- 
ancholy. His  abounding  mirth  and  happy  flow  of  spirits  were 
always  associated  with  a  strong  natural  counter  sadness.  In 
spite  of  his  sometimes  uproarious  hilarity  and  his  overflowing 
and  abounding  mental  energy,  he  was  in  turn  bowed  down  under 
the  oppressive  burden  of  the  consciousness  of  his  own  sins.  He 
had  his  times  of  outburst  of  joyfulness  and  laughter,  but  also  his 
times  of  depression ;  but  even  at  such  times,  after  he  had  emerged 
into  the  light  and  liberty  of  the  Gospel,  he  was  tranquil  and  self- 
possessed  in  his  faith  in  God.  It  was  such  a  combination  of 
geniality,  sadness  and  sense  of  sin,  along  with  his  manifest  faults 
and  weaknesses,  that  made  Luther  one  of  the  most  human  among 
all  the  great  and  good  men  of  whom  we  have  any  knowledge. 
Under  all  his  capacity  for  wit  and  humor  there  lie  great  depths 
of  tenderness  and  sadness,  a  passionate  unrest,  and  what  has  been 
called  his  "unnamable  melancholy."  He  had  a  glad  heart  and  a 
big  one,  but  one  that  was  also  shadowed  and  saddened,  as  well  as 
one  that  felt  unutterably  the  awful  mystery  of  life  and  death. 
But  whether  he  spoke  in  seasons  of  gladness  or  sadness,  his  per- 
fect candor  and  frankness,  together  with  his  disregard  of  pos- 
sible consequence  to  himself,  constantly  commended  him  to  thel 
generous  judgment  of  all  who,  from  partisan  considerations  or 
traditional  prejudice,  did  not  hate  him  with  an  unreasoning 
hatred. 

Luther  was  the  leader  of  a  cause.  That  cause  he  had  not  only 
to  lead,  but  inspire,  maintain  and  support.  To  his  big  task  he 
brought  the  resources  of  a  strong  and  not  always  tranquil  nature. 
He  could  not  have  done  what  he  did  and  push  on  to  success  the 
cause  associated  with  his  name  and  leadership  had  he  not  been 
endowed  with  a  somewhat  vehement  nature  and  strong  powers  of 
action.  In  it  all  he  was  a  courageous  hero,  who  was  always  ready 
for  battle,  a  man  who  ever  did  his  fighting  well,  but  whose  ca- 


158         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

pacity  for  contention  was  associated  with  the  simplicity  and  trust- 
fulness of  a  little  child. 

He  had  unusual  gifts  for  impressing  the  popular  judgment  and 
leading  the  masses,  but  he  never  catered  to  popular  favor,  and 
did  not  hesitate  to  risk  personal  popularity  when  the  popular 
judgment  ran  counter  to  his  convictions,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
peasants'  uprising  in  1525,  when  they  appealed  to  him  to  sanction 
and  support  their  claims,  set  forth  in  the  famous  twelve  articles 
in  which  they  recited  their  rights  and  their  grievances.  He  re- 
buked the  nobles  for  their  rapacity  and  oppression  and  the  peas- 
ants for  their  insubordination  and  license,  and,  at  last,  the  fright- 
ful atrocities  into  which  they  were  plunged.  He  was  all  in  one 
man  a  courageous,  energetic,  deeply  religious  and  statesmanlike 
leader,  preacher  and  reformer,  who  could  defy  all  man-made 
authority,  but  who  bowed  in  submission  to  the  authority  of  the 
Highest  and  sought  to  do  whatever  He  commanded. 

The  state  of  the  medieval  Church  in  his  day  was  calculated  to 
provoke  and  excite  such  a  mind  as  Luther's  to  revolt  and  arouse 
him  to  deep  indignation,  but  in  the  face  of  it  all  the  sounds  and 
sights  of  nature  all  touch  him,  now  with  joy  and  now  witk  poetic 
aspiration.  Of  all  the  reformers,  we  see  in  him  alone,  in  the  i 
fierce  conflicts  through  which  he  passed,  this  elevated  susceptibil- 
ity to  natural  grandeur  and  beauty.  When  other  men,  of  fine 
gifts,  who  were  his  contemporaries  were  rhyming  and  writing 
verses,  he  kept  quiet  on  that  particular  line,  but  when  the  rising 
revolt  against  Rome  called  for  popular  religious  song  as  one  of 
its  effective  adjuncts  he  was  the  man  who  became  the  real  founder 
of  a  new  school  of  churchly  and  popular  hymnody,  unequaled  for 
richness  and  power  in  spiritual  and  devotional  expression.  His 
love  of  music  and  nature  and  liberty,  and  above  all  his  heroic 
faith,  inspire  his  noble  hymns  in  which  the  note  of  triumph  always 
sounds  out  with  a  rapture  of  lyrical  feeling  and  excellence  rarely 
equaled  in  hymnological  productions.  These  beautiful  and  stir- 
ring utterances  of  the  Reformer,  escaping  from  him,  as  Heine 
says,  "like  a  flower  making  its  way  between  rough  stones,  or  a 
moonbeam  amid  dark  clouds,"  somehow  serve  to  add  grace  and 
grandeur  to  his  rugged  life  and  put  the  note  of  harmony  and 
joy  into  its  battling  discords. 


CHIEF  FACTOR  LN  THE  MOVEMENT  159 

XII 

Luther  became  all  the  fashion  in  his  day  of  triumph  when 
progress  was  the  word.  The  young  and  aspiring  intellect  of  the 
day  was  mainly  with  him  on  the  great  and  fundamental  question 
which  the  Lutheran  movement  soon  brought  to  the  front,  viz.,  who 
or  what  was  to  be  the  judge  and  arbiter  in  the  controversies  of 
faith  ?  He  held  the  strong  ground,  and  intellectual  men  soon 
saw  it  to  be  so.  They  rallied  about  him  to  a  degree  that  some- 
times serves  to  turn  the  heads  of  good  and  wise  men.  When  he 
was  born  the  human  mind  was  entering  upon  a  new  and  myste- 
rious stage  of  its  history.  In  his  developing  manhood,  planting 
himself  down  confidently  upon  ground  he  had  taken,  he  became 
the  leading  factor  in  that  history.  He  was  the  leader  of  his  age 
and  the  counsellor  of  princes,  but  with  it  all  he  was  destitute  of 
the  airs  of  a  great  man,  affected  no  station,  courted  no  great  men, 
was  one  of  the  common  people,  and  one  of  the  plainest  among 
them ;  a  manly  man  who,  in  the  midst  of  his  masterful  influence, 
continued  to  radiate  social  heartiness  and  comfort,  so  that  men 
loved  to  be  about  him.  Others  may  have  surpassed  him  in  some 
of  the  fields  of  scholarship,  but  none  of  his  contemporaries  ap- 
proached him  as  a  popular  hero,  and  none  was  cast  in  so  great 
a  mold.  In  contrast  with  his  loved  and  accomplished  coadjutor, 
Philip  Melanchthon,  who  was  frequently  dominated  by  his  native 
timidity  and  vacillation,  he  had  the  firmness  and  balance  neces- 
sary for  the  successful  issue  of  the  new  movement.  Calvin  was 
cold  and  intellectual,  systematic  and  legalistic ;  he  was  kind,  genial 
and  sympathetic.  This  is  a  reflection  of  the  Scotch  preacher  and 
writer,  the  late  Dr.  John  Watson,  known  in  letters  as  "Ian  Mac- 
laren" :  "No  one  can  estimate  how  much  Germany  has  gained 
from  Luther's  genial  and  robust  nature,  or  Scotland  lost  through 
Calvin  being  a  chronic  invalid  and  Knox  being  a  broken  man." 
He  could  be  severe  and  denunciatory  in  his  outbursts  of  indigna- 
tion when  smiting  with  a  mailed  first  the  apostasies  of  his  da}',  but 
in  him  sympathy  and  warmth  find  full  sway.  He  could  fight,  and 
successfully,  with  men  as  varied  as  the  serious  but  ordinary 
Cajetan,  the  shy  and  convivial  courtier,  Miltitz,  the  brow-beating 
and  bustling  Eck,  and  Aleandro,  the  papal  nuncio  and  literary 
star,  but  he  was  all  heart,  love  and  generosity  to  his  friends.  His 
liberality  was  genial,  but  out  of  all  proportion  to  his  limited  re- 


160         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

sources.  Wandering  students,  monks  who  had  escaped  from 
their  convents,  and  beggars  of  all  kinds  got  what  money  he  had, 
and  if  he  had  no  money,  he  gave  away,  it  is  said,  the  silver  cups  he 
had  received  as  presents,  his  generosity  frequently  becoming  the 
despair  of  'Katie,'  his  patient  and  long-suffering  wife." 

In  his  domestic  life  he  overflows  with  affection,  warmth  and 
tenderness.  He  was  fond  of  his  "gracious  dame  Katherine," 
and  had  the  greatest  delight  in  his  children.  "I  am  sufficiently 
contented,"  he  writes,  "for  I  have  three  noble  children,  which  no 
papist  theologian  has,  and  the  three  children  are  three  kingdoms 
which  belong  to  me  by  inheritance  more  surely  than  Ferdinand's 
Hungary,  Bohemia  and  the  Romish  Kingdom."  In  his  relations 
to  his  family,  whether  we  find  him  writing  in  rollicking  fashion 
to  his  wife,  or  giving  a  description  of  beautiful  horses  with  silver 
saddles  to  his  "voracious,  vivacious  and  loquacious"  little  boy 
John,  or  in  the  agony  of  overpowering  grief  when  falling  upon  his 
knees  at  the  death-bed  of  his  favorite  daughter,  Magdalena,  weep- 
ing and  holding  her  in  his  arms  and  praying  that  God  would  re- 
ceive her,  we  are  always  seeing  in  Luther  the  same  exuberant 
and  tender  as  well  as  energetic  character.  Few  great  men  have 
been  honored  and  loved  as  Luther  has  been  by  his  fellow-men 
who  knew  his  big  heart,  his  candid  and  unambiguous  intellect 
and  his  inflexibility  in  righteous  purpose.  There  have  been  more 
tranquil,  it  may  be,  more  complete  or  even  more  symmetrical 
characters,  but  none  that  has  been  richer  in  the  various  factors  of 
human  greatness.  The  manifold  gifts  with  which  he  was  en- 
dowed, together  with  that  special  mixture  of  character  which  is 
always  to  be  regarded  as  contributing  to  his  dominating  personal- 
ity, have  continued  from  generation  to  generation  to  keep  alive 
discussions  about  him  and  his  work,  and  induced  wise  men  of 
varied  and  sometimes  contradictory  religious  positions  and  dif- 
fering tastes  to  continue  to  attempt  to  interpret  both  the  man  and 
his  work.  He  has  been  one  of  the  chief  characters  in  history  to 
arouse  antagonism  and  to  quicken  defence.  His  enemies  have 
made  him  an  object  of  special  attack  and  his  friends  one  of  sym- 
pathetic vindication. 

The  number  of  truly  great  men  is  greatly  restricted,  but  to  this 
number  this  man,  with  his  honest  and  magnanimous  nature, 
swayed  by  a  living  faith  and  glowing  earnestness,  and  moved  by 
a  divine  conviction,  unquestionably  belongs.     As  it  has  been  ex- 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  161 

pressed  in  the  estimate  of  Bayard  Taylor,  he  was  "one  of  the  crea- 
tive spirits  of  the  race,"  "a  man  of  great  intention,"  "the  only 
Protestant  leader  whose  heart  was  as  big  as  his  brain." 

The  sudden  and  critical  turns  in  his  career,  the  free  play  of  all 
his  powers,  his  manly  independence,  his  impulses,  his  music,  his 
humor,  his  words,  his  courage,  his  triumphs  in  many  a  crisis,  and 
his  steadfast  loyalty  to  his  divine  Lord  and  Redeemer,  have 
charmed  the  writers  and  readers  of  his  life.  He  needs  no  official 
canonization  to  give  him  an  exalted  place  among  the  saints  who 
have  adorned  the  Christian  profession.  A  poor  miner's  son, 
born,  as  he  himself  says,  of  a  race  of  peasants,  in  his  school  days 
singing  at  the  gates  of  kindly  disposed  people ;  later  passing 
through  a  religious  struggle,  scarcely  equaled  in  human  biography, 
seeking  foi  the  real  meaning  of  the  Gospel,  avowing  his  con- 
victions with  unflinching  fidelity,  he  stands  today  as  the  recog- 
nized leader  of  these  modern  times.  As  a  personal  factor  in  the 
history  of  religion  and  civilization  he  has  been  adjudged  by  wise 
and  sagacious  interpreters  of  historical  forces  as  one  of  the  most 
commanding  in  the  entire  record  of  the  progress  of  mankind. 
Were  the  influence  of  the  doctrines  and  principles  he  restored  and 
persistently  and  successfully  reasserted  subtracted  from  what  is 
most  cherished  in  our  day,  the  result  would  not  only  be  depressing 
but  appalling. 

One  of  the  strongest  tokens  of  the  greatness  of  Luther's  place 
is  found,  in  the  continued  estimates  placed  upon  him  by  thought- 
ful and  informed  writers,  in  every  generation  since  he  lived.  He 
has  been  the  most  widely-interpreted  man  of  modern  times.  Of 
him  Prof.  Seeberg,  of  the  University  of  Berlin,  in  our  own  days, 
has  said :  "But  in  the  midst  of  the  dark  forebodings  of  those  days 
appeared  a  man  who  had  something  practical  to  propose  in  the 
face  of  all  the  vague  possibilities.  He  trod  like  a  giant  through  his 
age,  tramping  to  earth  what  a  thousand  years  had  held  in  venera- 
tion, but  everywhere  new  life  blossomed  in  his  footsteps."  Of 
him  also  in  recently  published  words  Gustav  Freytag  says :  "His 
picture  has  the  remarkable  quality  of  becoming  bigger  and  more 
lovable  the  more  closely  it  is  approached."  No  finer  words  have 
been  spoken  about  Luther  than  those  found  in  the  estimate  of 
one  of  his  latest  biographers,  Prof.  Lindsay,  Scotch  Presbyterian, 
who  says :  "History  shows  no  other  man  with  such  kingly 
power.     This  king  among  men  was  also  the  most  human.     He 


162         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

had  his  fits  of  brooding  melancholy,  his  times  of  jovial  abandon- 
ment, when  one  can  hear  his  great  jolly  laugh  and  his  rich  sono- 
rous voice  caroling  forth  songs,  his  moods  of  the  softest  tenderness 
with  wife  and  children,  and  his  abiding  sense  of  companionship 
with  the  eternal." 

In  the  closing  pages  of  his  generally  fair  and  always  interesting 
estimate  of  Luther,  Prof.  McGiffert  says:  "He  was  built  on 
no  ordinary  scale,  this  redoubtable  German.  He  was  of  titanic 
stature,  and  our  common  standards  fail  adequately  to  measure 
him.  But  his  life  lies  open  to  all  the  world,  as  do  few  other  lives 
in  history.     To  know  it  as  we  may  is  well  worth  an  effort." 

There  are  historic  figures  that  have  dwindled  with  the  lapse  of 
time.  In  their  own  day  and  generation  they  filled  a  wide  space, 
made  something  of  a  stir  and  to  their  contemporaries  seemed 
destined  to  an  immortality  of  fame  and  influence.  But  their  ac- 
tivities were  inspired  by  personal  and  selfish  considerations  and 
ambitions.  They  stood  for  no  great  and  abiding  principles. 
With  the  passage  of  the  years  they  have  become  more  and  more 
receding  memories  rather  than  permanent  and  growing  forces  in 
the  progress  of  the  race. 

There  are  other  figures  that  grow  in  impressiveness  with  the 
passage  of  the  years.  They  may  have  been  recognized  as  heroes 
while  they  lived,  but  the  full  measure  of  their  greatness  was  not 
then  discerned.  These  men,  who  wrought  in  a  kind  of  sublime 
self-forgetfulness,  and  were  concerned  the  least  of  all  about  their 
personal  futures,  who  were  stirred  by  the  wrongs  and  apostasies 
of  their  times,  by  cruel  tyrannies  and  brazen  impostures,  had  that 
prophetic  vision  which  looked  beyond  the  present  and  saw  the 
brighter  future,  when  great  truths,  for  which  they  contended,  but 
which  had  been  obscured,  perverted  or  denied,  for  a  time,  and  for 
a  long  time  as  in  the  medieval  Church,  should  come  again  to  their 
own.  To  this  latter  class  belongs  Luther,  the  hero  of  the  Refor- 
mation. The  most  obvious  indication  of  his  greatness  is  his 
fame.  Far  beyond  the  circle  of  scholars,  of  theologians,  of  the 
learned  class,  beyond  the  pale  of  all  the  ecclesiastical  bodies, 
Luther  is  known,  and  his  name  is  even  more  potential  today  than 
when  he  was  laid  to  rest  in  1546  in  the  old  church  at  Wittenberg, 
where,  in  October,  1517,  he  inaugurated  the  great  revolt  and  con- 
structive reformation  of  the  Church  and  became  the  leader  in  the 
modern  era  of  the  history  of  mankind,  the  greatest  movement 


CHIEF  FACTOR  IN  THE  MOVEMENT  163 

since  the  beginning  of  the  years  of  the  Incarnation  of  the  Son 
of  God. 

In  our  attempt  at  an  estimate  and  interpretation  of  this  extraor- 
dinary man  we  have  not  encountered  one  who  was  perfect.  He 
had  faults.  To  err  is  human.  He  lived  in  an  age  which  en- 
couraged roughness  of  speech,  and  he  must  not  be  judged  by  the 
standards  of  the  better  day  which  he  himself  inaugurated.  But 
take  him  all  in  all,  and  estimate  him  in  the  length  and  breadth,  the 
height  and  depth  of  what  he  was,  and  he  ranks  among  the  first 
of  the  magnates  of  mankind.  He  threw  off"  the  spiritual  despot- 
ism of  the  medieval  hierarchy  and  challenged  the  false  assump- 
tions of  the  popes  and  the  councils.  "He  proclaimed,"  as  has 
been  said  by  Mr.  James  Bryce,  "that  the  individual  spirit,  while 
it  continued  to  mirror  itself  in  the  world  spirit,  had  nevertheless 
an  independent  existence  as  a  center  of  self-issuing  force,  and 
was  to  be  in  all  things  active  rather  than  passive."  It  was  given 
to  him  to  divide  the  clouds  which  had  for  a  thousand  years  been 
hanging  over  medieval  Europe  and  darkening  it,  so  that  the 
glorious  Sun  of  Righteousness  might  shine  through,  and  men  who 
were  ignorant,  enslaved  and  lost  might  find  their  way  to  God, 
to  salvation  and  liberty. 


SECTION  III 
THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT 

There  are  three  great  elements  of  human  progress,  the  re- 
ligious, the  intellectual  and  the  productive ;  or,  under  different 
terms,  virtue,  knowledge  and  industry. 

History  is  something  more  than  a  mere  record  of  historical 
events,  whether  those  events  be  intellectual,  moral,  social  or  po- 
litical. It  is  a  phase  of  the  universal  process  in  which  we  live 
and  move  and  have  our  being,  and  of  which  we  as  men,  created  in 
the  image  of  God  and  as  free  moral  agents,  are  a  part.  It  is 
the  continuous  stream  of  human  life  flowing  ceaselessly  on  from 
times  even  more  ancient  than  those  of  which  we  have  any  writ- 
ten records.  Whatever  has  contributed  to  the  course  of  human 
development,  or  has  even  come  in  contact  therewith  as  an  oppos- 
ing force,  becomes  a  part  of  the  subject-matter  of  history.  Mr. 
James  Balfour,  the  distinguished  English  statesman  and  scholar, 
has  observed  that  the  great  movements  which  history  records  have 
in  every  case  been  "irrational."  In  the  use  of  this  word  he  seems 
to  incline  to  the  belief  that  such  movements  have  come  to  life  not 
as  the  result  of  intellectual  statement  or  appeal,  but  always  in 
obedience  to  forces  at  first  so  obscure,  and.  in  the  day  of  their 
power,  so  complicated  and  diverse,  that  it  is  impossible  to  isolate 
or  name  them,  or  in  any  way  to  co-ordinate  them  with  man's 
average  behavior. 

We  may  accept  Mr.  Balfour's  generalization  as  expressive  of 
the  impression  which  history  makes  upon  an  intelligent  and 
thoughtful  observer,  but  this  generalization  must  not  be  inter- 
preted as  meaning  that  the  leading  events  and  crises  in  human 
history  have  occurred  without  any  display  of  reason,  but  only  in 
obedience  to  some  force  which  was  looked  upon  as  a  new  element 
that  entered  into  the  life  of  any  particular  age,  an  element  not 
always  easilv  distinguished  and  interpreted  in  that  particular  age. 

In  its  broader  and  nobler  aspects,  history  is  a  long  series  of 
struggles  to  elevate  the  character  of  mankind  in  all  of  its  aspects, 
religious,  intellectual,  social  and  political,  rising  sometimes  to  an 

164 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  165 

agony  of  aspiration  and  exertion,  and  that  sometimes  followed 
by  a  period  of  relapse  and  retrogression,  as  is  the  case  frequently 
in  the  moral  and  religious  struggles  of  individual  men.  The 
periods  of  onward  movement,  and  even  those  of  reaction  and 
retrogression,  serve  to  illuminate  Browning's  oft-quoted  declara- 
tion of  faith  made  in  striking  poetical  form: 

"God's  in  His  heaven. 
All's  right  with  the  world." 

These  movements  are  always  sufficiently  definite  to  indicate, 
at  least  in  broad  outline,  the  sweep  of  God's  steadily  maturing 
plan  through  the  centuries.  Bunsen's  great  conception  of  "God 
in  History"  is  not  exclusively  a  Christian  teacher's  conception, 
but  is  likewise  that  of  representative  historians.  In  the  intro- 
duction to  his  "History  of  the  United  States,"  Bancroft,  accord- 
ingly, could  say  that  his  object  was,  "as  the  fortunes  of  a  nation 
are  not  under  the  control  of  a  blind  destiny,  to  follow  steps  by 
which  a  favoring  Providence,  calling  our  institutions  into  exist- 
ence, has  conducted  the  country  to  its  present  happiness  and, 
glory ;"  while  in  his  chapter  on  the  Pilgrims  he  likewise  recognizes 
the  divine  factor  in  this  way:  "The  mysterious  influence  of  that 
Power  which  enchains  the  destinies  of  States,  overruling  the  de- 
cisions of  sovereigns  and  the  forethought  of  statesmen,  often 
deduces  the  greatest  events  from  the  least  commanding  causes." 

Any  adequate  interpretation  of  history  begins  with  the  postulate 
that  God  is,  and  that  God  is  in  history  ordering,  directing  and 
overruling.  "We  believe  in  God,  the  Father  Almighty,  Maker  of 
Heaven  and  Earth."  We  believe  in  "Immanuel,"  which  being 
interpreted  means  God  with  us.  The  existence  of  God  and  His 
hand  in  the  history  of  mankind  does  not  depend  upon  the  last 
bright  thought  of  the  advanced  new  theologian,  with  his  revised 
interpretations  expressed  in  the  latest  popular  essays,  for  this  is 
the  central  fact  of  the  universe  and  the  most  significant  truth 
known  to  the  human  mind.  With  the  individual  and  with  the 
nations  of  the  earth,  life  is  from  God.  In  the  simple  truth  that 
God  wills  a  life  for  a  man  or  a  nation  are  unfolded  all  the  pos- 
sibilities of  that  life  for  the  individual,  and  for  the  nation,  which 
in  its  assigned  environment  and  in  its  given  measure  of  time. 
shall  unfold  itself  in  accordance  with  the  plan  of  Him  who  always 
"sees  the  end  from  the  beginning."     Holding,  as  we  do  as  Chris- 


166         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

tians,  to  such  primary  convictions  concerning  the  existence  of 
God  and  His  controlling  and  directing  interest  in  our  race,  one  of 
our  fundamental  beliefs  is  that  the  real  genius  of  human  history 
is  the  doctrine  of  divine  Providence.  If  it  requires  mind  to  con- 
struct the  universe,  it  is  certainly  a  primary  presumption  that  the 
direction  of  the  affairs  of  mankind  will  not  be  left  to  mindless- 
ness.  "History,"  as  has  been  said  by  one  of  the  fine  interpreters 
of  the  workings  of  the  medieval  mind,  "is  a  living  organism 
whose  parts  have  an  inward,  vital  connection,  each  requiring  and 
completing  the  rest.  All  nations  form  but  one  family,  having 
one  origin  and  one  destiny,  and  all  periods  are  but  the  several 
stages  of  its  life,  which,  though  continually  changing  its  form,  is 
also  substantially  one  and  the  same." 

If  such  reflections  as  these  are  correct,  both  the  writers  and  the 
readers  of  history  form  an  unworthy  estimate  of  its  province  if 
they  restrict  it  simply  to  the  cause  of  the  rise  and  fall  of  empires, 
the  factors  in  national  prosperity  or  decline,  to  a  presentation  of 
the  absoluteness  or  adaptation  of  the  various  forms  of  government, 
and  to  the  contemplation  of  the  evidences  of  growth  and  transition 
among  the  peoples  of  mankind.  The  science  of  history,  when 
rightly  understood,  deals  with  something  more  than  a  simple  nar- 
ration of  occurrences  and  controversies,  a  record  of  human 
progress  or  a  triumphal  eulogy  pronounced  on  the  growth  of  civ- 
ilization. They  only  estimate  it  aright  in  its  true  mission  who  see 
in  its  transitions  from  stage  to  stage  the  successive  pages  in  the 
on-goings  of  that  Providence,  which  is  its  informing  spirit,  and 
which,  without  pause  or  failure,  is  constantly  working  out  the 
counsels  of  the  divine  will.  If  we  would  understand  the  history 
of  mankind  aright,  it  is  not  enough  that  we  follow  in  the  wake  of 
battle  in  the  world's  decisive  conflicts,  listening  to  the  triumphant, 
shouts  of  the  conquerors  and  to  the  wail  of  the  vanquished,  or 
that,  like  Hegel,  we  attempt  a  philosophical  examination  of  the 
causes  of  upheaval  and  readjustment  among  the  peoples  of  the 
earth,  or  that  we  regard  it  as  a  school  for  the  study  of  human 
biography,  or  that  we  look  upon  it  as  a  mere  chaos  of  incidents, 
as  a  "mighty  maze  and  all  without  a  plan."  We  only  apprehend 
aright  the  true  ideal  of  history  when  we  discover  God  in  it, 
shaping  its  ends  for  His  own  mighty  designs,  bringing  order  out 
of  great  confusions,  resolving  its  complications  into  a  manifest 
unity  and  continually  raising  up  men  who  are  qualified  to  enter 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  167 

the  lists  as  the  real  leaders  of  their  fellows  along  the  pathways  of 
a  continual  progress. 

The  traditions  of  a  nation  are  potent  influences  in  the  de- 
velopment of  national  character.  The  memory  of  its  heroes  who 
have  brought  to  it  power  and  influence  in  the  earth,  of  its  prophets 
of  the  higher  spiritual  life,  as  contrasted  with  that  which  is  secu- 
lar and  material;  of  its  scientists  and  philosophers,  who  have  in- 
terpreted nature  and  given  direction  to  human  thinking  along 
elevated  lines ;  of  its  poets  and  philanthropists,  who  have  sung 
its  songs  and  organized  its  charities ;  of  its  good  and  great  men, 
who  have  brought  it  both  honor  and  distinction;  all  these  are 
factors  in  a  nation's  education  and  aid  us  in  forming  an  adequate 
estimate  of  its  career  and  destiny.  But  more  potent  than  any  or 
all  of  these  causes  are  those  great  movements  which  from  time 
lo  time  arise  in  the  progress  of  human  events  to  stamp  a  new  form 
and  superscription  on  the  world.  The  sacred  isolation  of  the 
Hebrew  commonwealth;  the  schools  of  philosophy  of  Greece;  the 
legal  genius  and  militocracy  of  Rome ;  the  invasion  of  the  bar- 
barians, whereby  the  Germanic  and  Romanic  elements  of  civiliza- 
tion were  blended  and  the  new  peoples  were  brought  under  the 
tutelage  of  the  Church  ;  the  crusades  beginning  in  the  closing  years 
of  the  eleventh  century,  whereby  the  stagnation  of  European 
society  was  broken  up  and  peoples  of  different  civilizations  were 
brought  into  contact ;  the  Reformation  under  Luther,  whereby  the 
Church  was  purified  and  the  human  mind  emancipated  from 
medieval  sacerdotal  bondage;  the  French  Revolution,  a  mighty, 
and  in  some  of  its  aspects,  disastrous,  struggle  for  political  equal- 
ity ;  the  rise  and  spread  of  the  Mohammedan  imposture ;  feu- 
dalism, with  its  mingling  of  barbarity  and  blessing;  the  advent  of 
the  world's  Redeemer;  the  invention  of  printing;  the  discovery  of 
America,  which  opened  up  a  new  field  wherein  were  to  be  pre- 
sented conditions  of  social  and  political  life  such  as  the  world  had 
not  hitherto  seen — all  these  were  not  only  historical  incidents,  but 
dominating  influences  in  the  formation  of  the  character  and  the 
direction  of  the  nations  of  mankind.  They  all  serve  to  show  that 
God  is  no  meaningless  factor  in  the  progress  of  the  race  in  its 
upward  movements,  and  that  there  are  no  blank  pages  in  His 
volumes  of  history. 

Such  views  of  God's  relation  to  historical  movements  have  led 
the  wise  and  sagacious  interpreters  of  that  science  to  look  upon 


168         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

the  Reformation  of  the  Church*  in  the  sixteenth  century — the 
Quadri-Centennial  of  which  the  Protestant  world  is  now  cele- 
brating— as  the  most  permanently  influential  and  vitalizing  move- 
ment in  modern  history,  and  Luther  as  its  dominating  figure,  as 
the  man  raised  up  of  God  to  start  the  peoples  of  the  earth  along 
paths  leading  back  to  the  fertile  fields  of  New  Testament  Chris- 
tianity and  forward  into  the  new  and  modern  era  in  which  we 
now  live. 

I 

Unity  in  history  implies  that  the  life  of  the  human  race  will  be 
the  working  out  and  the  illustration  of  some  great  principle  of 
abiding  importance.  To  the  Christian  thinker  this  principle  is 
the  redemption  of  mankind  by  means  of  supernatural  power,  and 
the  direction  of  man's  noblest  energies,  under  the  inspiration  of 
this  principle  of  redemption,  in  science,  art,  politics  and  the  or- 
ganization of  society.  To  the  non-Christian  or  the  half-Christian 
mind  other  universal  principles  in  history  are  made  to  serve  as  the 
basis  of  this  unity. 

The  estimates  and  standards  of  the  Christian  are  never  pureh 
or  chiefly  naturalistic.  "The  Church,"  says  the  elder  Dr.  Schaff, 
"is  the  continuation  of  the  life  and  work  of  Christ  on  earth, 
though  never,  indeed,  so  far  as  men  in  their  present  state  are  con- 
cerned, without  a  mixture  of  sin  and  error,"  and  the  primate 
among  the  historians  of  the  Church,  Neander,  expresses  the  same 
thought :  "Although  Christianity  can  be  understood  only  as 
something  which  is  above  nature  and  reason,  as  something  com- 
municated to  them  from  a  higher  source,  yet  it  stands  in  neces- 
sary connection  with  the  essence  of  these  powers  and  with  their 
mode  of  development ;  otherwise,  indeed,  it  could  not  be  fitted  to 
elevate  them  to  any  higher  stage ;  otherwise,  it  could  not  operate 
on  them  at  all.  And  such  a  connection,  considered  by  itself,  we 
must  presume  to  exist  in  the  wTorks  of  God,  in  the  mutual  and 
harmonious  agreement  of  which  is  manifested  the  divine  order 
of  the  universe.  The  connection  of  which  we  now  speak  consists 
in  this :  That  what  has  by  their  Creator  been  implanted  in  the 
essence  of  human  nature  and  reason,  can  attain  to  its  full  realiza- 
tion by  means  of  that  higher  principle,  as  we  see  it  actually 
realized  in  Him  who  is  its  source  and  in  Whom  is  expressed  the 
original   type  and  model   after  which  humanity  has  to  strive." 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  169 

Thus  God  in  man,  which  is  the  incarnation,  becomes  God  in  men 
through  the  working  of  the  Spirit  in  the  body  of  Christ,  which  is 
the  Church.  To  the  Christian  philosopher  and  the  simple  and 
humble  disciple  as  well,  the  basal  principle  in  the  interpretation 
of  world  movements  and  personal  salvation  alike,  is  the  doctrine 
of  the  divine  incarnation  and  the  supernatural  redemption 
wrought  in  the  individual  and  in  society  through  Christ,  for  with 
both  "there  is  none  other  name  given  among  men"  whereby  both 
individual  and  corporate  salvation  are  to  be  attained. 

There  is  a  theory  of  the  Reformation  which  regards  that  great 
movement  as  nothing  more  than  the  self-assertion  and  influence 
of  a  group  of  men  of  unusual  mental  and  moral  capacities.  It  is 
a  theory  that  rests  upon  the  opinion  of  writers  like  Goethe,  Car- 
lyle,  Treitschke,  Emerson,  Canon  Barry  and  others,  and  proceeds 
upon  the  assumption  that  it  is,  after  all  that  may  be  said,  indi- 
viduals that  create  and  stand  for  great  movements  and  that  his- 
tory is  nothing  more  than  the  biography  of  a  few  great  men. 
Even  so  great  and  competent  an  historian  as  Leopold  Von  Ranke 
looks  with  some  favor  upon  this  view.  We  have  been  treated  by 
Mr.  Buckle,  the  able  author  of  the  "History  of  Civilization  in 
England"  to  a  theory  of  history  which  aims  to  make  it  an  exact 
science,  and  to  reduce  all  events  under  a  law  of  causation.  "In 
regard  to  nature,"  says  this  ingenious  but  somewhat  eccentric 
writer,  "events  apparently  the  most  irregular  and  capricious  have 
been  explained,  and  have  been  shown  to  be  in  accordance  with 
certain  fixed  and  universal  laws.  This  has  been  done  because  men 
of  ability,  above  all,  men  of  patient,  untiring  thought,  have  studied 
natural  events  with  a  view  of  discovering  their  regularity  ;  and 
if  human  events  were  subjected  to  similar  treatment  we  have  a 
right  to  expect  similar  results."  In  opposition  to  the  view  of 
Buckle,  who  believed  that  the  great  events  of  history  were  de- 
termined by  physical  laws  in  which  men  had,  so  to  speak,  no  part 
and  of  which  they  are  only  the  instruments,  Von  Ranke  believes 
that  history  is  nothing  more  than  the  work  of  certain  minds  ful-  1 
filling  more  or  less  certain  conditions,  and  each  having  a  certain 
peculiar  sphere  of  influence.  It  has  not  been  doctrines  that  have 
overthrown  the  world,  but  the  powerful  personalities  who  be- 
came the  incarnation  of  those  doctrines.  Great  men  are  a 
product  of  nations,  and  they  do  not  appear  save  at  a  compara- 
tively advanced  stage  of  civilization."     But  in  another  place  the 


170         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

same  writer  goes  to  another  extreme,  asserting  that  "no  one  has 
any  right  to  speak  of  mistakes  committed,  opportunities  lost,  and 
culpable  omissions.  Events  rule  men ;  they  live  their  lives  under 
a  sort  of  inevitable  necessity;  they  have  on  them  the  seal  of  fate." 
In  the  light  of  history  itself,  and  any  adequate  philosophy  of  his- 
tory, this  "great  men  theory"  is  unsound.  It  is  only  when  it  is 
superficially  estimated  that  the  good  work  of  the  Reformation  is 
regarded  as  the  work  of  one  great  man  or  any  group  of  men. 
God  undoubtedly  raises  up  great  men  of  powerful  personality, 
who,  enlightened  with  clear  apprehension,  become  teachers  and 
sages  to  their  fellows,  and  persuade  them  to  move  along  new  and 
higher  lines  of  development,  and  thus  to  become  helpers  in  the 
carrying  forward  of  the  divine  purposes. 

I  But  no  genuine  and  permanent  reformation  ever  springs  forth 
,  full  grown  from  the  brain  and  heart  of  any  single  great  and  good 
,  man.  It  cannot  be  called  into  being  by  some  mere  herald  of  revolt 
or  by  some  self-willed  enthusiast.  If  it  be  real  and  is  to  be  per- 
manent it  must  express  a  common  aspiration  after  things  that  are 
both  good  and  true,  and  assert  itself  as  the  deep  and  unappeased 
hunger  after  spiritual  manna,  and  come  to  maturity  and  dominate 
(the  people  in  consequence  of  its  own  internal  energy  and  capacity 
for  assertion.  Back  of  it  there  must  be  principles  of  abiding 
value,  truths  of  fundamental  importance,  which  are  always  po- 
tential in  times  when  men  are  feeling  after  mental  and  spiritual 
certainty  and  tranquillity.  Great  men  are  just  as  much  the 
product  of  their  times  as  they  are  forces  to  stimulate  them.  The 
functions  of  the  leaders  lie  chiefly  in  giving  expression  to,  and 
in  wisely  directing,  movements  of  which  they  are  merely  a  part 
and  by  no  means  the  creators.  A  skeptical  attitude  toward  the 
existing  order  of  things,  or  mere  revolt  against  the  abuses  of  the 
medieval  Church,  could  never  have  united  men  as  they  soon  be- 
came united  around  the  standard  of  Luther.  The  Reformation 
I  was  something  more  than  a  revolt  against  abuses  existing  in  the 
Church  of  Rome  in  the  year  1517.  It  was  Protestant  against 
falsehood,  but  it  was  positive  in  its  reaffirmation  of  New  Testa- 
ment conceptions  of  the  Christian  religion.  The  battle  waged  by 
the  great  leader  of  that  movement  was  a  conflict  between  two  en- 
tirely different  views  of  the  religion  of  Christ.  It  was  the  asser- 
tion of  a  clear,  consistent  and  intelligible  conception  of  Chris- 
tianity as  antithetical  to  another  conception  that  is  clear,  consist- 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  171 

ent  and  intelligible,  and  which  was  held  by  the  Church  of  Rome. 
If  the  principles  contended  for  by  Luther  were  correct  then 
Rome  was  fundamentally  wrong.  "The  Lutheran  Church,"  says 
the  late  Dr.  A.  M.  Fairbairn,  "was  organized  by  a  body  of  beliefs 
and  in  order  to  their  realization.  These  beliefs  were  of  a  kind 
that  could  not  live  under  Catholicism,  nor  could  it  allow  them  to 
live.  They  were  throughout  the  negation  of  the  right  of  a 
sacerdotal  institution  to  be,  to  hold  any  place  or  exercise  any 
function  as  between  God  and  man."  The  Reformation  was  a 
movement  of  reconstruction,  a  restoration  of  principles  that  had 
been  lost  sight  of,  and  a  renovation  by  means  of  these  principles 
of  what  had  already  been  established.  The  questions  involved 
were  vastly  greater  than  whether  a  man  had  his  membership  in  a 
pure  or  a  corrupted  Church.  They  went  down  to  the  root  of 
things,  and  dealt  with  the  question,  "What  is  the  religion  that  is 
called  Christianity?"  It  was  not  only  an  assault  upon  the  false, 
and  an  effort  at  supplanting  that  which  had  become  obsolete,  but 
an  aggressive  assertion  of  positive  and  scriptural  principles.  It 
aimed  by  means  of  these  to  rectify  that  which  had  been  perverted, 
and  at  the  driving  out  from  the  sacred  places  of  the  Church  of 
that  which  had  been  shown  to  be  an  useless,  arrogant  and  un- 
necessary intruder.  It  sought  to  lead  men  back  again  to  a  belief 
in  New  Testament  doctrines,  to  a  reassertion  of  the  principles  of 
the  Gospel  in  its  unadorned  simplicity,  and  to  a  reaffirmation  of 
the  consistent  teachings  of  Paul  as  contrasted  with  contradictory 
and  unwarranted  decrees  of  councils  and  popes.  It  rejected 
with  firmness  and  energy  that  which,  during  a  period  of  a  thousand 
years,  had  engrafted  itself  upon  the  life  of  the  Church,  which  was 
not  of  the  Gospel  of  our  Lord,  and  enlisted  princes  and  nobles, 
scholars  and  artists,  peasants  and  barons,  in  the  new  movement 
which  marks  the  turning  point  from  the  medieval  to  the  modern 
period  of  human  history. 

In  seeking  for  its  origin  we  are  not  to  regard  the  Lutheran 
movement,  begun  in  October,  1517,  as  having  found  its  expression 
only  in  protesting  against  something,  and  in  particular,  against 
more  or  less  of  the  religion  taught  by  the  Church  of  Rome,  or 
as  having  its  beginnings  in  either  personal  or  transient  interests. 
That  would  have  represented  essentially  a  merely  negative  atti- 
tude of  mind.  The  great  and  permanently  valuable  affairs  in  the 
history  of  men  and  the  Church  proceed  from  causes  more  pro- 


172         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

found,  from  principles  of  perpetual  validity  and  importance.  In 
I  the  sixteenth  century,  before  any  real  reform  could  take  place, 
three  antecedent  conditions  were  necessary,  viz.,  a  manifest  need 
for  reform  in  established  institutions ;  the  necessity  for  that  re- 
form must  be  popularly  recognized,  and  the  principles  upon  which 
the  new  order  was  to  be  inaugurated  must  be  rooted  in  the  past. 
Such  being  the  conditions  at  that  time,  the  dawn  of  the  Reforma- 
tion was  at  hand. 

Luther  was  a  man  of  superb  gifts.  He  was  largely  endowed 
by  nature,  but  he  did  not  become  so  prodigiously  effective  in  the 
use  of  those  gifts  and  endowments  until  he  had  once  for  all 
planted  himself  down  defiantly  upon  certain  great  truths  clearly- 
taught  in  the  Scriptures  which  had  been  amply  validated  in  his 
own  experience,  and  until  he  had  broken  into  God's  liberty  and  by 
faith  had  become  a  prophet  of  the  Most  High.  With  due  allow- 
ance for  the  evolutionary  process  of  human  development,  and 
recognition  of  the  forces  at  work,  Prof.  Preserved  Smith,  a  great 
and  sympathetic  Luther  scholar,  has  shown  clearly  that  the  cour- 
age of  this  one  great  man  made  the  Reformation  possible.  "If 
some  such  crisis  was  inevitable  he,  at  least,  determined  its  time, 
and  to  a  large  extent  its  method."'  His  profoundly  religious 
nature,  sturdy  personality,  great  moral  courage,  indomitable  will ; 
his  loyalty  to  conscience,  as  Smith  says  it,  his  "gift  of  seeing  the 
essence  of  things  and  revealing  what  he  saw,"  his  warm  heart 
and  keen  sense  of  humor,  are  constantly  appearing  before  us  in 
clear  relief  as  we  contemplate  the  career  of  the  great  Reformer. 
All  these  were  fine  adjuncts  in  his  work.  But  all  these  kept  in  a 
fine  co-ordination,  as  they  were  in  him,  would  not  have  made  the 
Reformation  the  greatest  event  in  the  world's  history  since  the 
opening  of  the  year  of  the  incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God.  "A 
great  part  of  his  sublimity,"  says  Horace  Bushnell  of  Luther, 
"lay  in  that  awful  robustness  of  nature  that  could  be  tremend- 
ously kindled  by  God's  inspirations,  burning  on,  still  on,  in  a  grand 
volcanic  conflagration  of  faculty,  yet  never  consumed."  And  all 
this  is  no  doubt  true  of  the  great  Reformer,  but  back  of  that 
"sublimity"  lay  the  germinal  thought  and  experiences  out  of 
which  his  work  sprang,  and  which  are  vividly  exhibited  in  his 
life,  and  are  constantly  giving  strength  and  color  to  all  that  he 
did.  Reformers  are  always  thinkers,  and  out  of  formulated  and 
unambiguous   thinking   on   great   and    vital    principles   came   the 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  173 

Reformation.  About  these  Luther  was  not  only  brave  enough  to 
think,  but  also  courageous  enough  to  say  what  he  believed.  In 
isolated  cases  others  had  been  thinking  some  of  the  same  things, 
but  had  hesitated  to  express  them,  or  at  least  to  co-ordinate  their 
thinking  into  anything  like  a  consistent  system.  He  uncovered 
ancient  principles  and  readjusted  laws  that  had  been  misapplied, 
and  in  consequence  an  artificial  piece  of  ecclesiasticism  was 
demolished. 

The  Reformation  came  in  a  period  in  which  the  agencies  of 
restoration,  destruction  and  discovery  were  all  put  into  a  proper 
co-operation,  and  accordingly  the  past  four  hundred  years  have 
constituted  an  epoch  of  unsurpassed,  and  as  we  fervently  believe, 
of  permanent  progress  and  renewal. 

This  is  the  reason  why  Christendom  today  is  pronouncing  the 
name  of  Luther  not  only  with  admiration,  but  with  the  pro- 
foundest  feelings  that  can  stir  the  human  heart.  The  significance 
of  his  name,  however,  and  the  innumerable  celebrations  held  in 
honor  of  the  four  hundreth  anniversary  of  the  great  work  he 
inaugurated  with  his  theses,  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  represented 
more  than  any  one  man  the  principles  which  have  given  true 
Protestantism  its  existence  and  made  it  the  greatest  permanent 
factor  in  modern  civilization.  He  became  the  leading  spirit  in 
that  mighty  upheaval  of  human  thought,  which  was  more  than  a 
revival  of  letters,  although  that  revival  was  one  of  its  powerful 
adjuncts.  With  the  fall  of  Constantinople  into  the  hands  of  the 
Turks  in  1453  there  ensued  a  dispersion  of  Greek  scholars  over 
Western  Europe.  With  them  they  carried  a  genius  for  the  an- 
cient learning,  and  with  the  help  of  Petrarch,  Agricola,  Reuch- 
lin,  Erasmus  and  others,  they  awakened  a  new  and  enthusiastic 
appreciation  of  classic  heroes  and  works.  Schools  and  univer- 
sities sprang  into  life,  and  thus  in  a  large  degree  the  soil  was 
prepared  for  the  good  seed  of  the  Gospel.  But  a  literary  revival 
is  not  a  reformation  of  religion,  and  in  itself  is  not  a  proclama- 
tion of  salvation. 

Neither  was  this  great  movement  an  incidental  result  of  the 
invention  of  printing.  True,  the  quickening  influences  of  the 
press  had  just  then  burst  upon  the  world.  Just  at  the  right  mo- 
ment this  fine  accessory  of  the  new  movement  came  in  to  afford 
its  help.  In  1455  Gutenberg  was  enabled  to  send  out  into  the 
world  from  the  press  at  Maintz  the  first  printed  Bible.     In  the 


174         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

same  year  Reuchlin  was  born,  and  not  long  thereafter,  probably  in 
1466,  Erasmus,  of  Rotterdam.  Together  with  the  appearance  in 
type  of  such  works  as  Boccaccio's  Decameron  and  Greek  Gram- 
mars, there  appeared  the  Old  Testament  in  Hebrew  and  the  New 
Testament  in  Latin  and  Greek.  In  many  lands  the  desire  for 
knowledge  was  both  created  and  fed.  There  was  inspiration, 
stimulus,  and  knowledge  in  the  rapid  appearance  of  books.  But 
books  and  pamphlets,  which  appeared  in  such  rapid  succession, 
never  could  have  made  the  Reformation. 

Nor,  again,  is  this  movement  so  fraught  with  blessing  to  be 
identified  with  the  astonishing  development  at  that  time  of  the 
vernacular  tongues  of  Europe.  Hitherto,  indeed,  Latin  had  been 
the  language  of  religion,  of  diplomacy,  of  science,  of  all  com- 
munication between  learned  men  in  different  countries  of  the 
earth.  The  native  speech  of  the  great  masses  of  the  people  in 
each  of  the  nations  was  rude,  barbarous  and  wholly  destitute  of 
information  worthy  of  being  recorded  or  taught.  This  deep  and 
deplorable  ignorance  was  broken  up  when  approved  scholars  be- 
gan to  transfer  their  attainments  out  of  the  Latin  into  their 
mother  tongues,  and  were  forced,  in  the  process  of  breathing  new 
life  and  beauty  into  them,  to  make  them  the  medium  henceforth 
for  the  intellectual  as  well  as  the  moral  elevation  of  their  unedu- 
cated brethren.  This  supplanting  of  the  old  tongue  of  the  Church 
in  worship  was  one  of  the  most  significant  changes  wrought  in 
Luther's  work.  The  universal  use  of  Latin  had  been  one  of  the 
deep  marks  of  Catholic  and  European  character  of  the  old  re- 
ligion. Henceforth  Avorship  became  a  privilege  of  the  people  to 
be  expressed  in  their  own  tongue.  The  theory  of  worship  which 
had  prevailed  in  medieval  Christendom  was  that  the  believer  was 
a  passive  spectator  only  in  rites  and  ceremonies  wrought  for  him 
by  priestly  hands,  an  attendant  at  a  sacrifice  wrought  through 
sacerdotal  intervention  at  the  offering  up  of  prayer  and  praise  by 
priestly  lips.  This  was  now  rejected  in  the  interest  of  the  com- 
mon worship  of  the  people.  Expressions  of  adoration,  thanks- 
giving, praise  and  supplication  became  henceforth  functions  of 
the  whole  body  of  worshipers.  The  "mass"  became  a  com- 
munion of  the  whole  body  of  believers.  The  priest  no  longer 
was  looked  upon  as  the  only  one  to  be  entrusted  with  the  offering 
up  of  mysterious  sacrifices,  as  the  one  and  only  mediator  between 
God  and  the  worshiping  believer.      Placed  on  a  level  with  other 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  175 

members  of  the  universal  priesthood  of  believers,  instead  of  a 
mediator,  necessary  for  another  man's  access  to  God,  he  became 
the  simple  mouthpiece  of  the  congregation,  its  recognized  leader 
in  a  worship  conducted  in  the  language  of  the  people.  But  excel- 
lent and  desirable,  yea,  even  essential,  as  this  transformation  of 
the  European  vernacular  was,  that  was  not  the  Reformation  nor 
its  underlying  cause. 

Nor  was  this  movement  the  offspring  of  the  free  cities  of  Ger- 
many and  the  struggles  for  national  independence  that  were  then 
beginning  to  assert  their  influence  in  the  regeneration  and  ennoble- 
ment of  different  peoples.  Liberty  is  something  great  and  glor- 
ious, but  it  is  not  efficacious  in  the  restoration  of  correct  religious 
principles.  Greece  had  liberty  and  rejoiced  in  its  possession,  and 
that  beyond  measure,  but  liberty  did  not  lead  the  peoples  of 
Greece  to  confession  of  sin,  to  outcries  for  holiness,  to  a  recogni- 
tion of  the  only  living  God,  and  to  the  reconciliation  of  the  soul 
with  Him  by  means  of  His  infinite  pardon  and  endless  peace. 
This  great  movement  inaugurated  by  Luther  was  not  the  result  of 
the  contemporary  emancipation  of  men  from  intellectual  and 
civil  bondage. 

A  variety  of  causes,  it  is  true,  contributed  to  the  Reformation. 
Experience  teaches  that  neither  individuals,  nor  groups  of  men, 
nor  nations  or  races  of  men,  are  uniformly  controlled  in  their  ac- 
tions by  single  or  dissociated  motives.  A  variety  of  contributing 
causes  was  at  work,  acting  differently  and  with  varying  degrees 
of  force  in  the  production  of  that  epoch-making  movement.  But 
notable  changes  do  not  come  to  men  or  nations  unless  they  are 
based  upon  great  and  vital  principles.  Progress  is,  for  the  most 
part  due  to  the  leaven  of  an  idea,  which,  sometimes  long  half 
dormant  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  cautious  souls,  at  last  breaks 
forth  with  revolutionary  power  in  the  bold  act  of  some  courage- 
ous and  qualified  leader. 

It  has  been  noted  with  interest  that  great  movements  during 
the  Christian  era  have  come  about  in  periods  that  may  be  reckoned 
approximately  at  four  hundred  years.  During  the  earliest  period 
the  Roman  Empire  held  sway,  but  that  was  terminated  in  395 
A.  D.  There  followed  another  four  hundred  years  of  contact 
between  Roman  civilization  and  Germanic  barbarism,  when  suc- 
cessive invasions  from  the  north  and  east  threatened  for  a  time,  as 
it  seemed,  to  crush  out  all  civilization.     But  these  two  conflicting 


176         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

forces  clashed,  struggled  and  coalesced  until  at  the  time  of  the 
Great  Charles,  about  800  A.  D.,  there  came  about  as  the  result  a 
new  and  fairly  homogeneous  society,  which,  though  rude  and  un- 
developed, contained  some  of  the  forces  that  looked  forward 
to  national  organization  and  religious  reform.  Upon  the  heels  of 
this  there  followed  four  hundred  years  of  strife  and  turmoil,  dur- 
ing which  the  Church  was  the  single  unifying  force  and  the  one 
institution  that  conserved  the  factors  which  are  permanent  in 
civilization,  such  as  religion,  education,  the  spirit  of  kindness, 
commerce  and  building.  By  about  1200  A.  D.  "the  land  had 
rest"  in  a  measurable  degree,  and  there  followed  another  period 
of  new  intellectual  activity,  educational  organization,  progress  in 
science  and  art,  an  increasing  freedom  of  thought  and  its  asser- 
tion in  isolated  examples,  all  of  which  were  leading  up  to  the 
revival  of  learning  and  the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
Looking  back  today  over  the  four  hundred  years  that  have  ensued 
since  the  nailing  up  of  Luther's  theses  on  the  31st  of  October, 
1517,  which  has  appropriately  been  called  "the  birthday  of  the 
Reformation,"  we  can  form  something  of  a  true  estimate  of  the 
principles  and  forces  that  at  that  time  entered  into  the  making  of 
the  modern  era  of  human  history.  Back  of  the  idealism  and  the 
moral  and  spiritual  dynamic  which  then  enabled  the  people  under 
Luther's  leadership  to  throw  off  the  yoke  of  political  and  eccles- 
iastical tyranny,  and  the  assertion  of  that  freedom  of  thought  and 
purpose,  were  great  and  fundamental  principles,  especiallv  in  the 
sphere  of  religion. 

It  may  be  said  in  all  truth  that  no  new  forces  entered  the 
ecclesiastical  and  civil  institutions  at  the  opening  of  the  new  era 
inaugurated  by  Luther,  but  truths  that  had  long  been  suppressed, 
or  at  least  subordinated,  sprang  into  new  life  and  reasserted  them- 
selves as  dominating  and  compelling  forces  which  soon  swept 
Church  and  people  along  the  lines  of  a  new  development.  In 
that  period  the  most  significant  feature  was  the  release  and  rein- 
statement of  certain  principles  that  possessed  sufficient  power  to 
transform  the  world  of  that  day.  No  such  movement  has  its 
strength  in  falsehood,  nor  any  more  in  mere  negations,  and  no 
victories  of  a  genuine  Protestantism  in  the  future  will  be  of  any 
real  and  permanent  value  which  are  not  marked  by  a  return  to 
those  ennobling  principles,  which,  since  Luther's  day,  have  been 
connected  with  the  best  life  of  mankind. 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  177 

II 

The  groundwork  of  this  great  movement  was  religion  and 
the  primacy  of  its  place  among  men.  Its  essence  is  not  to  be 
found  first  of  all  in  opposition  to  errors  and  abuses  that  had  fast- 
ened themselves  upon  the  medieval  Church,  but  in  the  reasser- 
tion  of  positive  truth.  The  attitude  of  Luther  was  constructive 
and  positive  and  not  destructive  and  negative.  That  which  is 
worthy  of  the  name  of  reformation,  a  movement  such  as  carries 
with  it  those  factors  which  insure  permanency,  cannot  be  manu- 
factured by  any  kind  of  human  ingenuity.  It  was  not  a  matter 
of  human  invention,  for  had  it  been  it  would  not  have  endured 
for  four  hundred  years,  and  would  have  had  no  permanent  in- 
fluence on  the  future  of  civilization.  In  its  true  sense,  a  reforma- 
tion is  always  the  worked  out  result  of  regenerating  forces  and 
powerful  tendencies  which  have  been  for  a  long  time  at  work  in 
human  history,  the  outburst  of  spiritual  forces  that  have  long 
been  operating  and  whose  energetic  presence  at  last  has  reached 
the  point  of  restoration  and  reassertion.  A  genuine  reformation 
is  the  result  of  an  urgent  necessity,  which,  with  persistency  and 
power,  pushes  to  the  front  the  deepest  needs  of  an  age  and  which 
dominates  the  minds  and  hearts  of  earnest  men  with  irresistible 
power.  In  the  last  analysis  that  power  which  so  promptly,  when 
the  fulness  of  time  had  come,  permeated  the  social  structure  of 
the  German  people  and  gave  expression  to  their  deepest  desires 
and  profoundest  thoughts,  was  the  Word  of  God  in  the  hearts 
of  good  men. 

Speaking  from  the  human  side,  the  new  power  came  with  the 
dominance  and  extension  of  a  very  simple  idea  based  upon  the 
sacred  Scriptures,  viz.,  that  men  are  to  be  reconciled  to  God 
through  faith,  which  is  the  unmerited  gift  of  God.  The  prev- 
alence of  that  idea  not  only  wrought  for  salvation  from  sin  and 
its  entailments,  but  established  a  new  sense  of  the  dignity  of  man, 
of  individual  responsibility  and  initiative.  For  hundreds  of  years 
prior  to  Luther  the  dominant  conception  of  the  meaning  of  life 
was  this :  That  it  meant  to  know  and  do  the  will  of  the  rulers 
in  both  the  ecclesiastical  and  political  spheres.  To  obey  abso- 
lutely the  voice  of  authority  was  looked  upon  as  the  supreme  duty 
and  chief  end  of  man,  that  authority  being  vested  in  the  State 
or  the  Church,  and  more  frequently  in  the  Church,  when  for  long 


178         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

periods  it  dominated  the  State,  named  its  rulers  and  dictated  its 
policies.  It  was  the  work  of  Luther,  by  the  force  of  his  great 
personality  in  combination  with  the  assertion  and  insistence  upon 
certain  great  and  enduring  principles,  fundamental  alike  in  the 
first,  the  fourth,  the  sixteenth  and  the  twentieth  centuries,  to  break 
the  spell  of  this  species  of  authority,  to  dare  to  defy  it  and  to 
lead  men  back  to  the  essential  vantage  ground  where  their  actions 
were  once  more  based  upon  the  will  of  God  made  known  through 
His  revealed  Word,  as  interpreted  and  applied,  not  by  pope  or 
council,  but  by  every  man  who  devoutly  studies  that  Word  under 
the  guidance  of  the  Spirit  of  life  and  truth. 

In  its  ultimate  results  there  never  has  been  a  movement  which 
has  contributed  so  largely  to  the  emancipation  of  the  human 
mind  from  all  superstitious  terrors  as  the  Reformation  of  the 
Church  in  the  sixteenth  century.  It  had  strength  enough  in  the 
principles  upon  which  it  was  based  to  successfully  reject  an 
immense  proportion  of  the  dogmatic  and  ritualistic  conceptions, 
that  in  the  departure  of  the  Church  from  the  teachings  of  the 
Scriptures,  had  almost  covered  the  entire  field  of  religion.  It 
was  the  changed  attitude  toward  God  and  man  in  the  one  dis- 
tinctive sphere  of  religion  which  reversed  many  things  that  had 
become  established  and  set  the  world  going  on  its  new  and 
better  way. 

The  new  age  was  inaugurated  by  a  contribution  to  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  Gospel  that  still  maintains  its  dominion  over  the  most 
enlightened  portions  of  mankind.  From  its  very  beginnings  it 
was  based  upon  certain  positive  and  constructive  principles  of 
thinking  and  teaching.  Because  of  the  character  of  these  prin- 
ciples and  their  popularity  among  the  most  enlightened  peoples 
of  the  earth,  the  Protestant  movement  has  taken  its  place  among 
the  most  memorable  and  far-reaching  events  in  human  history,  as 
the  most  important  event  since  the  days  of  the  apostles,  from  the 
time  when  St.  John,  the  aged  and  beloved  disciple  of  the  Lord, 
passed  away  in  his  sea-girt  home  in  the  .^Egean.  That  movement 
did  great  things  and  accomplished  permanent  results  in  religion 
and  civilization,  not  only  in  its  negative  aspects  as  a  protest 
against  abuses  that  had  grown  up  in  the  Church,  but  much  more 
in  its  positive  aspects.  It  was  a  process  of  spiritual  advance  and 
not  retrogression,  a  re-proclamation  of  the  Gospel,  a  giving  back 
of  the  Scriptures  to  the  people  in  popular  form,  an  assertion  for 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  179 

all  men  alike  of  the  right  to  go  at  once  and  direct  to  God  for  par- 
don and  life,  to  repair  at  once  to  the  Chief  Bishop  and  Shepherd 
of  souls  for  a  forgiveness  not  mediated  by  an  order  of  men,  but 
which,  rejecting  the  monastic  ideal  of  the  Christian  life,  with  its 
seclusion  and  bodily  self-abnegation,  once  more  taught  men  that 
every  creature  of  God  is  good,  and  that  nothing  is  to  be  despised 
if  received  with  thanksgiving. 

That  the  chief  of  the  Reformers  had  faults  and  was  somewhat 
subject  to  limitations,  all  will  admit,  but  we  cannot  on  that  ac- 
count go  back  on  the  main  verdict  which  history  affirms  and  our 
experience  validates.  Because  of  the  vitality  of  the  truths  for 
which  he  contended,  the  Reformation  was  a  mighty  movement  of 
the  Spirit  of  God  leading  the  Church  forward  to  a  fuller  under- 
standing of  the  Gospel,  and  bringing  to  all  who  sincerely  received 
it  the  gift  of  spiritual  enfranchisement.  It  implied  the  parting 
of  the  roads  and  was  a  disclosure  of  the  new  conception-  of  the 
Christian  Church.  The  unity  of  the  Church  must  in  the  future 
be  consistent  with  the  right  of  private  judgment,  instead  of  resting 
on  the  authority  of  a  hierarchy  which  claims  an  exclusive  divine 
right  by  the  title  of  a  presumed  divine  appointment. 

One  of  the  things  alleged  against  Protestantism  by  Romanists, 
and  by  some  pseudo-Protestants  even  today,  is  that  it  is  negative 
and  negative  only ;  that  it  consists  in  mere  empty  allegations  that 
this  or  that  is  not  so,  in  exposing  and  denouncing  error.  But 
such  is  not  the  case.  Protestantism  is  not  negative,  but  positive 
in  all  of  its  triumphant  aspects.  It  is  primarily  a  witness  for 
and  not  merely  a  witness  against.  It  has  lived  and  grown  power- 
ful, not  in  consequence  of  its  negations,  but  in  consequence  of  its 
affirmations.  The  negative  condition  for  such  an  event  as  the 
Reformation  had  been  fulfilled  in  disconnected  assaults  upon  the 
alarming  corruptions  of  the  Church,  isolated  reaffirmations  of 
single  truths  of  the  Gospel,  the  dismal  failure  of  the  reformatory 
councils  and  the  widespread  clamor  for  a  reformation  of  morals. 
Something  more  and  of  greater  account  was  necessary,  and  that 
was  the  positive  assertion  of  great  and  fundamental  truths  of 
religion  and  their  co-ordination  into  a  consistent  system.  The 
firm  conviction  that  salvation  comes  not  from  man  but  from  God, 
the  fact  that  pardon  of  sin  is  not  something  negotiable,  but  a  di- 
vine bestowment — this  one  truth,  firmly  grasped  and  affirmed, 
made  the  Reformation  not  only  possible  but  a  matter  of  assured 


180         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

success.  Going  back  to  the  Scriptures  as  the  pure  Word  of  God, 
in  contrast  with  human  teachings  and  traditions ;  the  firm  con- 
viction that  perfect  peace  with  God  and  true  happiness  cannot 
spring  from  any  human  activity  or  works  prescribed  by  the 
Church,  but  from  divine  grace  revealed  in  Christ  and  received  by 
a  living  faith;  that  the  matter  of  primary  concern  was  not  so 
much  a  matter  of  a  man's  relation  to  the  Church  as  of  his  rela- 
tion to  Christ ;  that  the  most  direct  way  to  God  was  not  through 
the  elaborate  prescriptions  of  the  Church,  much  confused  with 
human  traditions,  but  through  Christ  the  Redeemer  and  one  all- 
sufficient  Mediator  and  His  promised  Spirit,  Who  maketh  men 
free  and  leadeth  them  into  the  truth  and  holiness — these  are 
truths  which  once  firmly  grasped  and  held  made  the  new  Lutheran 
movement  an  assured  historical  fact. 

Thus  the  Reformation  was  more  than  a  reform,  for  it  marked 
the  re-establishment  of  primitive  Christianity.  Its  purpose  was 
not  the  destruction  of  the  Church,  but  to  lead  the  Church  back 
and  place  it  anew  upon  the  one  abiding  foundation  of  which 
Jesus  Christ  was  the  chief  cornerstone.  The  Reformers  knew 
that  the  existence  and  continued  work  of  the  Church  demanded 
the  rearing  of  a  new  temple  upon  the  old  and  tried  foundation  of 
the  apostles,  martyrs,  prophets  and  teachers  of  the  one  true 
Church,  made  up  of  the  congregation  of  souls  who  really  and 
truly  believe  in  Christ,  and  among  whom  the  Gospel  is  properly 
taught  and  the  sacraments  rightly  administered.  That  great 
movement  was  a  real  re-establishment  of  Christianity  in  the  world. 
It  reaffirmed  the  principles  upon  which  the  true  Church  had  been 
placed  by  its  Head  and  His  apostles  at  the  beginning,  and  con- 
tinued its  life  by  means  of  a  resurrection  of  what  had  been  to  all 
appearances  dead  and  buried.  In  painful  experiences  men  had 
become  aware  that  the  existence  and  work  of  the  Church  de- 
manded that  a  new  superstructure  must  be  raised  on  the  old  rock 
interpreted  and  elaborated  in  the  Epistles  of  the  New  Testament. 
Luther  was  no  ruthless  iconoclast  who  aimed  at  destruction,  but 
rather  a  most  cautious  reconstructionist,  always  careful  to  plan 
and  work  within  the  limits  prescribed  by  the  sacred  Scriptures. 
The  objective  foundation  upon  which  to  build  was  for  him 
Christ  and  the  salvation  conferred  upon  men  by  Him.  To  this 
he  added,  with  renewed  emphasis,  a  long-lost  and  much-ignored 
truth  of  a  moral  creation  as  the  basis  for  the  personal  expression 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  181 

of  the  Christian  life.  He  reaffirmed  the  fact  that  the  Church,  if 
it  is  to  remain  a  Church  at  all,  must  start  from  a  real  regenera- 
tion. He  kept  the  objective  and  subjective  elements  in  religion 
in  proper  co-ordination,  properly  relating  the  certainty  within  a 
man  to  the  certainty  for  a  man.  There  was  thus  provided  a 
safeguard  against  mere  mystical  impressions  and  unstable  opin- 
ions, the  pit  into  which  all  certainty  that  is  merely  subjective  is 
always  liable  to  fall. 

Theology  waited  for  renewal  and  regeneration  until  at  last 
Luther  came,  the  needed  successor  of  Paul  and  Augustine,  who 
led  this  queen  of  all  the  sciences  back  from  its  long  exile  from 
the  simplicity  that  was  in  Christ,  and  refounded  it  upon  the  great 
truth  that  men  are  justified  before  God  by  faith  alone.  The  Re- 
former's heart  cried  out  for  the  living  God,  and  as  opportunity 
came  he  studied  the  Word  with  rare  diligence.  Becoming  a 
university  professor,  he  was  deeply  convinced  of  the  supremacy 
of  the  Bible  over  all  the  teachings  and  interpretations  of  men. 
As  he  continued  his  study  of  the  Scriptures  this  conviction  deep- 
ened. The  two  biblical  books  which  he  selected  for  his  first  lec- 
tures at  Wittenberg  are  those  books  of  the  New  Testament  which 
are  especially  strong  in  their  teaching  that  the  sinner  has  im- 
mediate access  to  God,  and  that  salvation  is  not  of  works  but  by 
faith  alone.  All  through  his  carefully  constructed,  and  to  this 
day  deeply  interesting  comments,  one  may  discern  the  great  man 
struggling,  in  spite  of  himself,  with  the  old  medieval  system  of 
salvation,  and  seems  to  hear  him  at  times  breaking  forth  in  ex- 
clamations of  rapture  as  he  attains  to  his  new  apprehension  of  the 
Gospel  and  experiences  the  newly  found  blessing  of  freedom  in 
Christ.  More  and  more  was  he  dominated  by  the  Pauline  con- 
ception of  free  grace,  as  he  came  step  by  step  to  discard  Aquinas 
and  Aristotle,  the  chief  among  the  authoritative  teachers  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  as  Augustine,  the  greatest  of  the  post-apostolic 
fathers,  more  and  more  became  his  chief  human  authority. 

Another  striking  feature  appears  in  Luther's  university  work 
as  Bible  lecturer,  in  making  Scripture  to  interpret  Scripture, 
thus  establishing  a  principle  which  later  the  Reformers  put  into  a 
formula.  When  his  adversaries,  to  prove  their  case,  in  discus- 
sions from  1518  to  1521  heaped  up  the  customs  of  the  Church, 
the  decretals  of  the  popes  and  councils  and  quotations  from  the 
fathers,  he  confidently  appealed  to  the  oracles  of  the  living  God, 


182         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OE  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

drawing  his  proofs  from  the  spiritual  arsenal  of  the  Word  of 
God.  Another  notable  thing  for  his  times,  in  Luther's  study  of 
the  Scriptures,  was  that  he  devoted  himself  with  much  diligence 
to  the  study  of  the  original  languages,  Greek  and  Hebrew.  When 
this  capable  young  man  had  completed  his  university  course  as  a 
student  he  knew  no  Greek  and  very  little,  if  any,  Hebrew.  For 
centuries  distinguished  theologians  and  doctors  of  the  Church  had 
known  neither  of  these  languages  in  which  the  original  Scriptures 
appeared.  Neither  Wiclif  nor  Huss,  heralds  of  the  coming  Ref- 
ormation, knew  Greek,  and  Thomas  Aquinas,  "the  angelic  doctor," 
Bonaventura,  "the  seraphic  doctor,"  and  Duns  Scotus,  "the  subtle 
doctor,"  had  never  entered  this  linguistic  field.  The  study  of 
these  biblical  tongues  had  been  introduced  into  Germany  by 
Erasmus  and  Reuchlin  while  Luther  was  yet  a  young  man,  and,  in 
keeping  with  its  dominating  stupidity  in  such  matters,  in  the  face 
of  strenuous  opposition  on  the  part  of  the  Church.  Largely  by 
his  own  unaided  efforts  the  chief  of  the  Reformers  gained  a 
knowledge  of  these  two  languages  as  a  part  of  his  equipment  for 
his  work,  and  from  the  year  1517  on.  in  his  controversies  with 
the  papal  chieftains,  he  was  able  to  point  them  to  the  original 
text  of  the  Bible,  a  province  into  which  their  ignorance,  for  the 
most  part,  did  not  permit  them  to  enter.  In  the  linguistic  and 
exegetical  contests  of  the  day  Luther  always  held  the  strong  place 
from  which  he  could  not  be  dislodged. 

Especially  was  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  which 
Luther  had  found  in  his  careful  study  of  the  Scriptures,  to  be 
wrought  into  his  experience,  for,  as  has  been  said  by  Prof.  Lind- 
say, "The  beginnings  of  the  Reformation  were  not  so  much  doc- 
trinal as  experimental."  Luther  headed  a  reformation  because 
men  felt  and  knew  that  he  had.  as  he  said,  found  a  gracious  God 
by  trusting  in  His  grace  as  revealed  to  him  in  Jesus  Christ.  The 
driving  power  of  the  whole  movement,  as  we  have  seen  earlier, 
was  a  great  religious  experience  kept  in  a  true  co-ordination  with 
the  Word  of  God.  "If  thou  holdest  faith,"  said  Luther,  "to  be 
simply  a  thought  concerning  God,  then  that  thought  is  as  little 
able  to  give  eternal  life  as  ever  a  monkish  cowl  could  give  it." 
Such  was  not  the  Reformer's  conception  of  that  faith  which  saves. 
For  him,  on  the  one  side,  there  stood  the  Father,  revealing  Him- 
self in  sending  down  to  us  His  promises,  which  are  yea  and  amen 
in  Christ  Jesus :  and  on  the  other  side,  there  are  the  hearts  of 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  183 

men  ascending  in  faith  to  God,  receiving,  accepting  and  resting  on 
the  promises  of  Him  who  always  gives  Himself  in  those  promises. 
For  modern  Christianity  he  had  done  what  x\ugustine,  in  an 
earlier  age,  had  done  for  medieval  Christianity.  From  the  accre- 
tions of  a  thousand  years  of  blighting  sacerdotalism  it  was  his 
mission  to  call  the  Church  back  to  what  had  been  ignored  or 
destroyed,  back  to  that  immediate  communion  between  the  per- 
sonality that  is  human  and  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  divine.  He  made  war  upon  that 
system  which,  in  effect,  stands  between  the  sinful  yet  trustful  soul 
and  the  Lord  who  hath  redeemed  it  at  a  great  price,  and  through 
faith  in  Whom  it  is  granted  reconciliation  and  peace.  He  assailed 
the  imposition  of  penances  and  penalties  of  priestly  invention  and 
exaction.  He  made  a  break  with  the  old  ecclesiastical  order,  and 
there  arose  new  churches  not  from  it  but  entirely  independent 
of  it.  He  planted  those  scriptural  principles  that  gradually  grew 
into  a  freedom  of  religious  thought,  which  would  never  have  come 
to  the  world  had  Christendom  gone  on  under  the  dominance  and 
direction  of  one  great  and  all-comprehensive  ecclesiastical  control. 
The  most  valuable  principle  in  the  doctrinal  system  of  Augustine, 
the  doctrine  of  the  necessity  of  grace  in  salvation,  was  practically 
suppressed  until  its  reassertion  by  Luther.  In  his  progress  from 
stage  to  stage  of  his  break  with  the  papacy,  he  was  forced  more 
and  more  into  open  hostility  to  the  fundamental  principles  of  the 
sacerdotal  theology,  because  the  refutation  of  their  conclusions 
depended  upon  the  destruction  of  their  premises.  In  two  sermons 
preached  in  1518  he  swept  away  the  whole  system  of  canonical 
penitence,  while  in  another  series  of  propositions  issued  for  public 
disputation  he  approaches  very  closely  to  his  great  foundation 
principle  of  justification  by  faith  in  his  repudiation  of  the  neces- 
sity of  sacerdotal  intervention  between  God  and  man  for  the  re- 
mission of  sins.  His  position  then  taken  would  lead  logically  to 
the  breaking  down  of  all  the  spiritual  machinery  of  confession, 
penitential  exercises,  absolution  and  excommunication,  on  which 
the  whole  temporal  and  spiritual  authority  of  the  hierarchy  de- 
pended. In  another  sermon  on  excommunication,  preached  about 
the  same  time.  Luther  reveals  the  mental  transition  through  which 
he  was  passing  and  the  inevitable  struggle  into  which  he  had  been 
thrust  between  his  efforts  to  attain  to  freedom  from  the  law  and 
the  long-cultivated  habit  of  obedience  to  ecclesiastical  authority. 


184         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

These  and  many  other  phases  of  the  spiritual  development  tak- 
ing place  in  Luther  were  indications  big  with  meaning.  In  the 
initial  stages  of  his  break  with  Rome  he  might  have  deceived 
himself  as  to  the  consequences  of  his  attitude,  but  the  leaders 
of  the  papacy  labored  under  no  delusion.  They  could  observe  the 
signs  of  the  times,  and  could  perceive  the  end  to  which  the  prin- 
ciples asserted  in  succession  by  the  Reformer  were  leading. 
They  discovered  that  his  defiance  involved  a  rift  down  deep  and 
permanent  in  western  Christendom.  As  the  spectators  gazed 
wonderingly  at  his  bold  act  of  defiance  of  all  the  powers  of  both 
heaven  and  earth,  as  they  supposed,  on  that  10th  day  of  De- 
cember, 1520,  when,  surrounded  by  magistrates,  students,  pro- 
fessors and  citizens  of  the  town,  near  the  Elster  gate  at  Witten- 
berg, he  burned  the  papal  bull  and  decretals,  they  may  not  have 
grasped  the  full  significance  of  what  was  transpiring.  But  on 
that  fateful  ceremony  hung  great  consequences.  The  bold  Re- 
former had  burned  the  bridges,  and  henceforth  retreat  was  not 
only  impracticable  but  impossible.  Not  only  had  he  become  a 
preacher  of  damnable  doctrines,  an  advocate  of  condemned  here- 
sies, and  a  turbulent  schismatic,  but  he  had  defied  the  old  hier- 
archy which  had  been  consolidated  through  a  thousand  years  of 
historical  vicissitudes,  and  in  that  act  had  made  a  return  to  Rome 
impossible.  It  soon  became  manifest  that  the  movement  was  not 
to  be  retarded,  much  less  arrested,  by  edicts  of  condemnation  and 
papal  acts  of  excommunication.  That  conflict  of  freedom  and 
faith  with  supersition  and  tyranny  was  based  upon  principles  so 
scriptural  and  invincible  that  the  usual  papal  methods  of  repres- 
sion were  no  longer  available  for  effective  service.  Luther's  own 
experience  was  the  nucleus  about  which  was  gathered  all  that  was 
most  vital  in  the  thought  of  the  age — the  return  to  the  Bible,  to 
Augustine  and  to  Mysticism ;  the  protest  against  the  sophistries 
of  the  schoolmen  and  against  the  corruption  of  the  Church,  and 
the  restoration  of  a  simpler  and  more  individual  relation  of  the 
soul  to  God.  That  great  man  was  fitted  to  be  the  prophet  of  his 
age,  because,  first  of  all,  he  had  the  most  searching  experience  in 
what  that  age  most  needed — personal  religion. 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  185 

III 

In  her  condemnation  of  the  Reformation  the  Church  of  Rome 
has  been  rabid,  untruthful  and  persistent  in  the  face  of  rejoinders 
that  have  been  historically  unanswerable,  and  satisfactory  to 
all  reasonable  and  fair-minded  people.  In  her  eyes  that  move- 
ment, led  by  Luther,  was  nothing  more  than  an  impious  heresy, 
leading  men  on  to  an  abyss  of  Pantheism,  Materialism  and  Athe- 
ism, tending  to  overthrow  the  very  foundations  of  human  society. 
She  has  contended  that  the  principles  upon  which  that  movement 
was  based  are  revolutionary,  dangerous  and  not  to  be  tolerated. 
She  has  asserted  that  it  was  a  wicked  error  to  admit  Protestants 
to  equal  political  privileges  with  Romanists,  and  that  to  coerce 
them  and  suppress  them  is  a  sacred  duty.  As  recent  a  pope  as 
Gregory  XVI  has  denounced  freedom  of  conscience  as  an  insane 
folly,  and  the  freedom  of  the  press  a  pestilential  error  which  is 
not  to  be  endured.  No  pope  since  Gregory  has  reversed  or  dis- 
sented from  the  judgment  of  his  alleged  infallible  predecessor. 
At  first  the  Church  looked  upon  Luther  as  nothing  but  a  vulgar, 
insubordinate  and  quarrelsome  monk,  a  pestilential  disturber  of 
things  established  by  ecclesiastical  authority,  an  inconspicuous 
upstart  to  be  easily  suppressed.  In  the  centuries  which  have 
passed  since  the  day  that  he  was  laid  to  rest  in  the  old  church 
at  Wittenberg,  where  he  inaugurated  his  great  movement, 
the  villification  that  has  been  poured  out  upon  him  and  his  work 
has  been  so  bitter  as  to  have  become  ludicrous  in  some  of  its 
aspects.  It  has  been  declared  that  his  father  was  not  the  hus- 
band of  his  mother,  but  a  wicked  and  designing  scoundrel,  who 
had  deluded  her ;  that  after  ten  years'  struggling  with  his  con- 
science he  had  become  an  open  and  declared  atheist ;  that  he 
denied  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul ;  that  he  had 
composed  hymns  in  honor  of  drunkenness,  a  vice  to  which  he  was 
unrestrainedly  addicted ;  that  he  had  blasphemed  the  Bible,  and 
especially  the  writings  of  Moses ;  that  he  was  insincere,  not  him- 
self believing  a  word  that  he  preached;  that  he  had  called  the 
Epistle  of  James  nothing  more  than  an  epistle  of  straw;  and, 
above  all,  that  the  Reformation  was  no  work  of  his,  but  in  reality 
was  due  to  certain  astrological  causes,  to  a  certain  malignant  ar- 
rangement of  the  stars.  Rome  kept  on  in  the  mistake  that  the 
movement  was  nothing  more  than  a  casual  outbreak,  failing  to 


186         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

discern  that  it  was,  in  fact,  the  culmination  of  forces  that  for 
hundreds  of  years  had  been  at  work  in  Europe,  and  which  had 
all  been  anticipations  of  Luther. 

But  notwithstanding  all  this  abuse,  misinterpretation  and  blun- 
dering of  Rome,  those  regenerative  and  world-uplifting  prin- 
ciples set  forth  by  the  Reformer  became  very  soon  the  cause  of 
the  emancipation  of  the  human  mind  from  ignorance,  the  citizen 
from  tyranny,  the  Christian  believer  from  priestcraft,  and  the 
soul  from  every  form  of  spiritual  thraldom.  They  had  in  them 
the  popular  appeal,  and  became  at  once  the  cause  of  a  general 
change  in  intellectual  and  spiritual  conditions,  in  the  processes 
and  tone  of  human  life.  There  sprang  up  an  expression  of 
freedom,  joyfulness  and  independence  hitherto  unknown.  There 
were  great  changes  in  the  actual  conditions  of  life,  which  once 
more  brought  fresh  power  and  courage  to  men  and  altered  their 
attitude  toward  ultimate  questions  about  God  and  man's  relation 
to  Him.  There  sprang  up  a  belief  in  the  possibility  of  a  spiritual 
and  divine  life  even  beyond  the  pale  of  ecclesiastical  forms  and 
prescription.  Radical  social  changes  were  inaugurated,  and 
these  led  on  to  yet  newer  and  larger  developments.  Very  soon 
Luther's  masterful  and  concrete  grasp  of  things  became  more 
and  more  manifest,  and  that  served  much  to  fill  the  whole  move- 
ment with  glowing  life  and  irresistible  attraction.  He  succeeded 
in  transferring  the  religious  problem,  in  all  its  essentials,  to  the 
immediate  personal  life  of  the  individual,  there  working  it  out  in 
its  full  scope  in  the  sphere  which  had  been  usurped  by  the 
Church,  with  its  sacerdotal  machinery  and  catalogues  of  good 
works.  The  chief  characteristic  of  the  new  life  among  the 
people  was  freedom,  so  that  Melanchthon  could  exclaim,  "in  the 
end,  Christianity  is  freedom."  This  freedom  was  not  something 
that  came  as  a  gift  of  nature,  but  from  the  favor  and  gift  of  God. 
It  was  a  liberty,  not  of  the  man  in  himself,  but  of  the  "Christian 
man,"  a  liberty  under  which  we  are  no  longer  oppressed  and  com- 
pelled by  legal  enactments,  but  impelled  by  motives  which  induce 
men  to  do  good  of  their  own  accord.  It  was  the  kind  of  free- 
dom unto  which  a  man  attains  when  he  passes  out  from  the 
minute  and  detailed  requirements  of  the  Levitical  code  into  the 
freedom  of  Paul's  man  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.  It  was 
a  freedom  from  works — not  as  though  works  could  in  any  sense 
be  dispensed  with  by  free  men  in  Christ,  but  in  the  sense  that  they 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  187 

do  not  bring  the  gift  of  salvation — a  freedom  in  which  we  are 
not  emancipated  from  works,  but  from  the  ascription  of  saving 
value  to  works.  Everything  that  in  any  way  obscured  the  work 
of  Christ  and  weakened  trust  in  the  efficacy  of  grace  alone,  was 
compelled  to  stand  aside.  Ceremonies  of  the  Church  were  to  be 
regarded  as  subject  to  change  and  adaptability  from  time  to  time, 
while  to  look  upon  them  as  essentials  to  salvation  was  to  diminish 
our  dependence  on  the  divine  benignity  expressed  in  the  gifts  of 
God's  grace.  The  spiritual  was  exalted  above  the  sensuous  in 
religion,  and  in  consequence  the  externalism  of  the  ancient  papal 
hierarchy,  which  expressed  religion  in  a  vast  structure  outside 
the  soul,  was  shaken  out  of  its  usurped  place  of  supremacy. 

At  the  inauguration  of  the  Reformation  the  times  were  full  of 
new  forces,  intellectual  and  moral,  political,  social  and  economic. 
These  forces  were  everywhere  at  work,  tending  to  make  religion 
the  birthright  and  possession  of  the  common  man  as  well  as  of  a 
special  priest-caste  among  men  to  which  the  transmission  of  the 
blessings  of  salvation  had  been  entrusted.  But  what  gave  its 
popularity  to  the  movement  was  the  strong  appeal  made  by  these 
distinctively  religious  principles  to  the  popular  mind  and  heart. 
These  gave  it  its  peculiar  democratic  tone  and  made  of  it  a 
mighty  force  of  liberation  and  the  dawn  of  the  new  day. 

Mistakes  have  been  indulged  in  regarding  the  popularity  of 
pre-Lutheran  efforts  at  reform.  We  are  sometimes  reminded 
of  the  fact  that  the  medieval  absoluteness  of  the  papal  claims  had 
been  questioned  and  even  assailed,  both  in  its  dogmatic  teachings 
and  hierarchical  claims,  long  before  Luther  was  born.  By  one 
of  the  philosophical  historians  we  have  been  reminded  that  "they 
who  endeavor  to  trace  all  modern  negations  to  the  Reformation 
ignore,  or  affect  to  ignore,  the  fact  that  in  the  ninth  century 
Scotus  Erigena  denied  eternal  punishment;  that  in  the  twelfth 
century  Abelard  declared  the  teachings  of  the  Greeks  to  be  su- 
perior to  the  Old  Testament ;  that  in  the  thirteenth  century  scores 
of  Catholics  refused  to  believe  in  the  miraculous  conception  of 
the  Virgin  and  the  resurrection  of  Christ;  that  two  hundred 
years  before  the  Reformation,  when  the  Holy  See  was  at  the 
height  of  its  power,  St.  Thomas  and  Duns  Scotus  found  them- 
selves obliged  to  prove  with  all  the  arts  of  logic  the  need  of  a 
revelation  and  the  credibility  of  Scripture."  The  great  French 
critic,  Taine,  writes  much  in  harmony  with  what  we  have  just 


188         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

cited  from  Weber.  "One  hundred  and  thirty  years  before 
Luther  they  said  that  the  pope  was  not  established  by  Christ,  that 
pilgrimages  and  image  worship  were  akin  to  idolatry,  that 
external  rites  were  of  no  importance,  that  priests  ought  not  to 
possess  temporal  wealth,  and  that  the  confessional  has  not  power 
of  absolving  from  sin."  Without  giving  endorsement  to  the 
theological  bias  indicated  by  both,  it  may  be  said  that  these  claims 
of  Taine  and  Weber  are  historical  and  true.  Others  before  his 
day  had  spoken  words  that  were  as  true  and  brave  as  those 
spoken  by  Luther.  Others  had  refused,  even  for  life  itself,  to 
give  up  the  truth  which  they  were  glad  to  believe  and  confess. 
Others  had  from  time  to  time  made  what  has  well  been  called  the 
"grand  refusal,"  and  had  gone  courageously  and  triumphantly  to 
the  stake.  But  these  were  the  advanced  souls  who  confessed  the 
truth  and  protested  against  the  abuses  of  the  medieval  Church. 
In  the  troublous  times  that  were  leading  up  to  the  irrepressible 
conflict  of  the  sixteenth  century  there  were  those  who  stood  up  in 
their  own  time  and  place,  and,  as  the  heralds  of  revolt,  defied  the 
power  and  the  terror,  the  prestige,  the  fascination  and  the 
grandeur  of  the  medieval  Church.  They  were  the  advance  her- 
alds of  the  great  army  that  was  then  organizing  to  march  under 
the  banner  of  freedom  and  light.  The  mystic,  who  was  seeking 
only  the  inward  assurance  of  divine  love,  was  uttering  his  testi- 
mony in  the  obscure  places  of  the  earth.  We  read  of  mothers 
who  were  burned  alive  for  teaching  their  little  children  the  Lord's 
prayer  in  their  mother  tongue ;  of  children  who  were  compelled 
with  their  own  hand  to  light  the  fagot  of  their  own  father's 
martrydom ;  of  gentlewomen  who  refused  to  cease  singing  their 
sweet  hymns  of  patience  and  trust  as  they  lay  in  the  pit  where 
they  were  condemned  to  be  burned  alive. 

There  were  those  who  helped  forward  the  cause  of  reform  by 
demonstrating  the  difficulty  of  the  regeneration  of  the  papal 
system  from  within.  There  were  others  who  stimulated  the 
desire  for  the  moral  betterment  of  the  clergy.  There  were  others 
still  who  fixed  in  the  minds  of  the  thousands  the  thought  that 
was  destined  by  and  by  to  bear  much  fruit  in  the  early  history  of 
the  German  Reformation,  the  thought  that  there  was  in  a  General 
Council  of  the  Church  an  authority  superior  to  that  of  the  pope, 
and  which  might  be  invoked  at  any  time  if  the  exigencies  in  the 
life  of  the  Church  were  sufficiently  urgent.     There  were  brilliant 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  189 

opponents  of  the  papal  claims.  In  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  cen- 
turies Marsilius  of  Padua,  one  of  the  keenest  sighted  among  the 
antagonists  of  papal  usurpation,  anticipated  in  his  contentions 
much  that  was  later  embodied  in  the  real  Reformation — the  uni- 
versal priesthood  of  believers,  the  sole  authority  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, the  human  origin  of  the  papacy  and  the  power  of  rulers  to 
control  ecclesiastical  appointments.  In  his  writings  this  Italian 
publicist  and  author  of  the  Defensor  Pads,  in  his  views  of  the 
popes,  of  the  people  and  of  religious  liberty,  was  a  forerunner  of 
modern  organized  expressions  of  democracy  in  both  Church  and 
state.  He  was  sufficiently  sound  in  his  doctrinal  and  admin- 
istrative discussions  as  to  have  influenced  Luther. 

Arnold  of  Brescia,  the  preaching  monk,  the  disciple  of  Abelard, 
the  opponent  of  St.  Bernard  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Hildebrandine 
polity,  was  undoubtedly  put  to  death  in  the  twelfth  century  for 
criticising  the  tyranny  of  the  Roman  court.  He  employed  his 
eloquence  against  the  papal  theory  of  government,  advocated  the 
return  of  the  clergy  to  something  of  its  primitive  simplicity  by 
having  each  state  confiscate  their  property  and  introduce  the  vol- 
untary method  of  support.  He  even  advocated  that  the  pope, 
the  honored  but  presumptuous  occupant  of  the  seat  of  St.  Peter, 
should  be  reduced  to  the  same  level.  Arnold  had  kindled  the 
spirit  of  republicanism  in  Rome  which  served  to  drive  Lucius, 
another  man  of  advanced  views,  from  the  Holy  City,  and  made 
of  him  a  wanderer  in  towns  and  a  refugee  in  castles,  while  he 
was  vainly  expecting  restoration  at  the  hands  of  the  Emperor 
Frederick  Barbarossa,  who  had  been  called  "the  Xerxes  of  the 
Middle  Ages."  Arnold  himself  was  banished  by  Pope  Hadrian 
IV  and  the  nobles,  while  Rome,  in  punishment  for  giving  even 
a  small  measure  of  sympathy  to  his  views,  was  placed  under 
the  interdict.  The  papal  religion  triumphed  speedily  over  liberty, 
for  Arnold  was  ordered  into  exile,  while  Frederick  Barbarossa, 
coming  to  Rome  to  be  crowned,  had  the  brave  heretic  seized, 
secured  his  excommunication  from  the  Church  and  at  last  had 
him  put  to  death  by  both  hanging  and  burning. 

It  is  also  true  that  John  Wiclif  in  England,  one  hundred  and 
thirty  years  before  Luther,  was  expressing  doubt  about  tran- 
substantiation.  He  had  long  been  a  student  and  professor  at 
Oxford,  where  he  ranked  as  the  ablest  schoolman  of  his  day. 
Like  a  true  patriot,  he  opposed  papal  encroachments  in  England, 


190         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

and  denied  the  rights  of  temporal  rule,  taxation  and  amassing  of 
property  by  the  papacy,  the  prelates  and  the  monks.  The  true 
Church  he  declared  to  be  composed  of  the  invisible  number  of  the 
predestinate.  In  that  true  Church  he  affirmed  the  Scriptures  to 
be  the  fundamental  law,  while  later  he  declared  Christ  to  be  the 
only  head  of  the  Church,  and  that  the  pope,  unless  he  be  one  of 
the  predestinate  who  rule  in  the  spirit  of  the  Gosepl,  is  the  vicar 
of  Antichrist.  In  1381  he  startled  his  countrymen  by  declaring 
the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation  to  be  an  error  to  be  condemned. 
He  further  denied  the  infallibility  of  the  Roman  Church  in  mat- 
ters of  faith,  rejected  the  necessity  of  auricular  confession,  criti- 
cized the  doctrine  of  purgatory,  pilgrimages,  worship  of  saints, 
and  veneration  of  relics  as  unscriptural,  and  maintained  that  the 
Bible  speaks  of  no  other  offices  than  priests  and  deacons  as  neces- 
sary for  the  Church.  But  though  sympathized  with  by  many  in 
positions  of  influence,  the  views  of  Wiclif  did  not  gain  any  wide 
acceptance  or  attain  to  any  organized  permanency.  He  quietly 
passed  to  his  eternal  rest  at  Lutterworth  in  1384,  but  the  bigotry 
of  the  papacy  again  displayed  itself  when,  in  1415,  the  Council  of 
Constance  declared  him  to  be  a  stiff-necked  heretic  and  placed 
him  under  the  ban  of  the  Church.  Not  only  was  it  decreed  that 
Wiclif's  books  should  be  burned,  but  that  the  same  judgment 
should  be  visited  on  his  bones.  About  a  dozen  years  later  the 
impotent  malice  of  the  papacy  found  expression  in  the  command 
of  Pope  Martin  V  that  the  order  of  the  council  should  be  carried 
out,  when  the  reformer's  bones  were  dug  up  and  burned  and  the 
ashes  cast  into  the  Swift,  which  flows  through  Lutterworth.  This 
was  an  amazing  example  of  ecclesiastical  stupidity,  even  for  bad 
times,  but  it  became  a  symbol  of  final  triumph : 

"The  Avon  to  the  Severn  runs, 

The  Severn  to  the  sea; 
And  far  as  ocean  throws  her  waves 
On  lands  of  chapels  and  of  graves 

Shall  Wiclif's  doctrine  be." 

In  consequence  of  the  Emperor  Sigismund's  infamy,  and  by 
order  of  the  Council  of  Constance,  as  a  reward  for  the  evangeli- 
cal character  of  his  sermons,  preached  in  the  Bethlehem  Chapel 
in  the  city  of  Prague,  in  Bohemia,  John  Huss  calmly  heard  his 
sentence.     Stripped  of  his  priestly  garments,  and  with  a  mitre  of 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  191 

paper  on  his  head  on  which  devils  were  painted,  and  bearing  the 
inscription,  "A  ringleader  of  heretics,"  he  was  burned  at  the  stake 
on  the  green  slopes  of  the  Lake  of  Constance,  on  July  6,  1415. 
His  books  had  already  been  burned  at  the  gate  of  the  town 
church,  and  to  add  to  the  diabolism  of  the  occasion  the  bad  work 
was  consummated  when  the  ashes  of  the  martyr  were  carefully 
collected  and  thrown  into  the  Rhine. 

The  Dominican  preacher,  Jerome  Savonarola,  was  a  great 
moral,  political  and  religious  reformer,  but  his  love  of  liberty 
brought  upon  him  persecution  and  at  the  last  the  crown  of 
martyrdom.  In  1483,  the  very  year  in  which  Martin  Luther  was 
born,  and  nine  years  before  the  discovery  of  America,  this  strange 
man,  honest,  eloquent  in  speech  and  gifted  with  an  insight  which 
led  to  prophetic  utterances,  made  his  appearance  in  Florence, 
and  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent  expressed  his  surprise  that  such  an 
eloquent  and  practical  friar  had  come  to  town.  The  times  were 
evil,  especially  so  in  Florence,  and  the  reformer  soon  had  struggles 
on  every  hand.  The  Church  of  San  Marco  was  too  small  to  ac- 
commodate the  people  who  crowded  in  to  hear  the  wonderful 
preacher.  In  the  history  of  the  pulpit  no  preacher's  voice  has 
been  more  commanding  and  no  message  more  courageous.  The 
opposition,  ever  on  the  increase,  now  began  to  organize  for  ef- 
fective demonstration.  Savonarola  arraigned  the  iniquities  of  the 
city  and  the  rulers.  The  pope  demanded  his  surrender  and 
threatened  to  interdict  the  city.  The  brave  preacher  was  advised 
to  be  more  discreet  and  not  to  excite  the  people. 

In  reply  to  the  advice  he  said,  "I  attack  only  crime  and  in- 
justice, and  the  earliest  preachers  did  nothing  less."  Surmising 
who  had  sent  those  giving  the  advice  he  said  further,  "Go  tell 
Lorenzo  that  he  would  do  well  to  repent,  for  God  will  call  him 
to  judgment.  Tell  him  that  I  am  a  stranger  and  he  is  a  citizen ; 
but  I  shall  remain  and  he  shall  go."  In  1492,  when  Lorenzo  was 
dying  at  his  country  home,  after  receiving  the  sacrament  he 
sent  for  the  reformer.  It  is  said  that  the  friar  abjured  him  to 
rely  on  the  mercy  of  God  for  his  salvation  and  to  restore  all  un- 
just gains.  To  this  the  dying  man  assented,  when  the  bold 
preacher  said,  "and  now,  one  thing  more ;  give  back  to  Florence 
her  liberty."  Lorenzo  silently  turned  his  face  to  the  wall,  when 
Savonarola  left  him.  The  incident  shows  the  fundamental  dif- 
ferences between  men. 


192         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

Jerome  held  advanced  views  on  the  matter  of  papal  supremacy 
and  infallibility  and  the  seven  sacraments.  Still  he  did  not  re- 
nounce mariolatry,  the  mass  and  other  unscriptural  papal  doc- 
trines. He  still  adhered  to  the  Romish  Church.  In  recent  years 
he  has  been  canonized,  and  thus  accorded  a  place  in  the  list  of 
approved  and  duly  qualified  saints.  He  was  an  Augustinian  who 
believed  strongly  in  the  Pauline  theology.  Of  faith  he  spoke 
much  in  the  terms  of  Luther.  "Faith,"  said  he,  "alone  justifies; 
that  is,  makes  righteous  in  the  sight  of  God.  without  the  works 
of  the  law."  While  in  prison  he  wrote  a  commentary  on  the 
fifty- first  Psalm,  which  Luther  published  in  1514  with  words  of 
praise. 

There  followed  in  quick  succession  the  threatened  interdict, 
the  mob,  the  riot,  the  false  charges  (among  these  being  the  glor- 
ious one  that  he  taught  justification  by  faith),  the  tortures  and  the 
condemnation,  without  a  fair  hearing,  at  the  hands  of  the  bitterest 
enemies.  Before  the  Signoria  in  Florence,  for  lashing  the  sins 
of  the  Roman  hierarchy  and  arraigning  the  wickedness  of  an 
apostate  city,  Savonarola  was  hanged  on  a  gallows,  his  body 
burned  and  the  ashes  thrown  into  the  Arno.  He  was  only  forty- 
six,  but  he  had  done  the  work  of  many  more  years  and  had  suf- 
fered the  woes  of  a  generation.  His  mighty  voice  had  been 
stilled,  but  the  truths  he  had  so  bravely  affirmed,  like  the  current 
of  the  river  into  which  his  ashes  had  been  cast,  flowed  on  into 
the  mighty  ocean  of  the  swiftly  oncoming  historic  events. 

But  these  men  were  in  no  wide  sense  successful  in  their  re- 
formatory movements.  It  is  a  mistake  to  look  upon  them  in  any 
considerable  degree  as  popular  idols  among  even  the  people,  not 
to  say  anything  of  the  bigoted  and  brutal  hostility  of  the  ruling 
classes.  Although  the  papacy  was  sinking  under  the  weight  of 
its  own  unscriptural  but  mighty  claims,  and  had  become  a 
source  of  countless  abuses  and  even  a  cause  of  schism,  there  was 
as  yet  no  popular  uprising  to  support  the  claims  of  the  valiant 
pre-reformation  reformers.  True  it  is  that  the  field  of  the  new 
age  was  alive  with  growths,  and  that  the  nations  of  Europe  were 
astir  with  new  enterprises,  and  becoming  more  and  more  dom- 
inated by  new  forces.  The  people  of  all  ranks  and  classes  were 
in  fear,  or  in  hope,  of  great  and  impending  changes,  but  the  prin- 
ciples of  a  perfect  reformation,  as  to  their  developments  and 
proper  co-ordination,  were  reserved  for  a  later  day.  when  the 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  193 

people  should  be  prepared  to  accord  them  a  wider  acceptance  and 
popularity.  It  was  well  said  by  a  Dutch  historian  two  hundred 
years  ago,  in  writing  of  the  gradual  progress  of  reform,  even  near 
to  the  close  of  the  medieval  period :  "That  the  wonderful  work 
of  reformation  was  small  and  of  very  little  account,  apparently, 
in  its  beginnings,  and  yet  it  hath  been  advanced  with  wonderful 
progress,  will,  I  believe,  be  denied  with  none  that  have  with  at- 
tention and  due  consideration  read  the  history  of  its  first  rise, 
since  God,  the  beginner  and  author  of  this  glorious  work,  pro- 
ceeding by  steps  and  degrees,  used  therein  such  singular  wisdom 
and  prudence  that,  every  circumstance  duly  considered,  instead  of 
censuring  any  part  thereof,  we  shall  be  obliged  to  cry  out, 'Thou, O 
Lord,  knowest  the  right  times  and  seasons  to  open  the  eyes  of  the 
people  and  to  make  them  capable  of  Thy  truth.' ':  The  successive 
reforms  undertaken  by  such  men  as  Peter  Waldo,  John  of  Wesel, 
John  Wessel,  John  Wiclif,  John  Huss,  Jerome  of  Prague  and 
others,  were  often  partial,  and,  apparently,  ephemeral  and  local, 
and  were  in  their  scope  by  no  means  perfect  or  free  from  many 
of  the  errors  of  the  old  system.  But  to  the  discerning  man  it  is 
apparent  that  their  local  and  ephemeral  character  was  more  in 
appearance  than  in  reality.  Although  the  chief  promoters  of 
these  reforms,  from  time  to  time,  perished,  and  often  without 
seeing  "the  travail  of  their  souls,"  the  strong  hand  of  authority 
covering  their  names  with  reproach  ;  although  for  a  time  the  voice 
of  their  testimony  seemed  to  have  been  stifled,  such  was  not  the 
end  of  it,  for  it  lived  on,  and  was  like  the  "bread  cast  upon  the 
waters,"  which  was  "found  after  many  days,"  to  become  the 
strength  and  power  of  those  who  came  after  to  "fight  the  good 
fight  of  faith,"  and  to  succeed  in  a  larger  way  in  the  reaffirma- 
tion and  re-establishment  of  "the  faith  once  for  all  delivered  to 
the  saints."  The  proclamation  of  the  truth  by  such  men  did  not 
fall  to  the  ground.  It  had  in  it  an  irrepressible  influence,  and  be- 
came, in  a  considerable  sense,  a  platform  for  future  reformers  to 
stand  upon  in  the  days  when  they  found  the  hearts  of  increasing 
numbers  prepared  to  rally  to  the  standard  of  truth  that  seemed 
for  a  time  to  be  trodden  under  foot. 

But  we  are  in  far  greater  danger  of  exaggerating  the  popular- 
ity of  pre-Lutheran  reforms  and  reformers  than  we  are  of  under- 
rating them.  One  brave  man  in  Germany,  England,  Bohemia, 
France,  or  in  Rome  itself,  stood  out  for  spiritual  freedom,  and 


194         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

a  few  only  followed  him.  A  little  reforming  sect  would  spring 
up,  but  it  was  yet  easy  for  some  usurping  king  or  papal  lord  to 
stamp  it  out  with  a  small  company  of  merciless  dragoons,  or  to 
drive  it  into  mountain  fastnesses  with  sword  and  fire.  Forces  of 
various  orders  were  easily  at  command  that  could  speedily  make 
it  appear  that  men,  like  these  we  have  cited,  had  "labored  in  vain 
and  wrought  no  deliverance  in  the  earth."  The  people  were  not 
for  Wiclif,  Huss  and  Savonarola,  but  they  were  with  Luther, 
whose  theses  came  one  hundred  and  two  years  after  the  burning 
of  Huss,  twenty  years  after  the  martyrdom  of  Savonarola  and  one 
hundred  and  thirty- three  years  after  the  death  of  Wiclif.  The 
appeal  of  the  principles  we  have  named  above  became  irresistible. 
In  spite  of  the  prohibition  of  unauthorized  printing  by  the  edict 
of  Worms  in  1521,  Germany  was  flooded  with  books,  pamphlets, 
and  leaflets  insisting  upon  freedom  and  popularizing  the  conten- 
tions of  the  Reformer,  who  had  come,  not  in  advance  of  his  age, 
but  in  the  "fulness  of  time''  to  create  an  age.  A  public  opinion 
was  created  which  prevented  the  execution  of  papal  bans  and 
edicts.  The  campaign,  started  with  the  ninety-five  theses  in  1517, 
had  so  aroused  the  popular  interest  that  within  four  years  it  had 
become  irresistible.  The  elder  Dr.  Schaff  declares  that  "Luther 
was  by  far  the  most  original,  fertile  and  effective  controversialist 
and  pamphleteer  of  his  age.  He  commanded  the  resources  of 
genius,  learning,  courage,  eloquence,  wit,  humor,  irony  and  ridi- 
cule, and  had,  notwithstanding  his  many  physical  infirmities,  an 
astounding  power  of  work.  He  could  express  the  deepest 
thoughts  in  the  clearest  and  strongest  language,  and  had  an 
abundant  supply  of  juicy  and  forcible  epithets.  His  very  oppo- 
nents had  to  imitate  his  German  speech  if  they  wished  to  reach 
the  masses  and  hit  the  nail  on  the  head." 

But  notwithstanding  the  ability  and  fertility  of  Luther,  and  this 
resourcefulness  in  the  use  of  learning,  wit,  humor  and  sarcasm, 
his  work  would  have  failed,  even  in  his  day,  had  it  not  been  for 
the  popular  estimate  placed  by  the  masses  upon  the  principles  for 
which  he  was  standing  fast.  The  same  class  of  common  people 
who  jeered  at  John  Huss  when  he  was  enveloped  in  sheets  of 
flame  at  Constance,  in  July,  1415.  defied  the  emperor  and  the 
pope,  and  were  clamoring  for  approval  for  Luther  at  Worms  in 
1521.  The  great  mass  of  people  in  1415  thought  that  Huss  was 
getting  what  he  deserved,  but  in  1521  they  were  determined  that 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  195 

Luther  should  be  both  heard  and  protected.  There  were  but  few 
to  sympathize  with  Savonarola  when  he  ascended  the  scaffold  at 
Florence  in  1498,  but  in  1521,  when  the  word  had  spread  that 
harm  had  likely  come  to  Luther  from  the  pope's  men  when  on 
his  way  from  Worms  to  Wittenberg,  there  was  a  tidal  wave  of 
indignation  and  resentment  that  swept  over  the  land  from  the 
shores  of  the  Baltic  to  the  Swiss  Lakes. 

Before  the  man  whose  word  should  kindle  the  land  into  a 
flame  could  speak,  the  forces  which  were  at  work  to  overthrow 
the  absolute  tyranny  of  the  Middle  Ages  had  to  gain  popularity, 
not  with  single  isolated  reformers — brave,  courageous  and  valiant 
in  their  day  and  place — not  only  in  little  sects  and  brotherhoods, 
but  in  large  circles  of  society.  There  came  trial,  enmity  and  per- 
secution, but  more  and  more  leaders  and  people  ranged  them- 
selves on  Luther's  side,  and  in  Germany  and  other  lands  the 
movement  for  freedom  in  thought,  worship  and  life  swept  on 
apace.  Not  only  in  the  primary  way  of  popularizing  in  literary 
form  certain  great  principles  and  co-ordinating  them  into  a  con- 
sistent theological  system,  was  Luther  the  leader  of  the  Reforma- 
tion ;  but  also  by  translating  the  Bible  from  the  original  text,  by 
urging  popular  education,  by  introducing  popular  church  song 
among  the  people  and  catechetical  instruction  among  the  chil- 
dren, and  by  advocating  other  large  matters  which  we  associate 
with  the  movement,  was  he  in  the  forefront  in  giving  a  wide 
popularity  and  acceptance  to  truly  democratic  principles  in  both 
religious  and  civic  life  and  organization.  In  the  good  fight  of 
lhat  great  day  he  brought  in  the  era  of  not  only  freedom  from  the 
pope,  but  also  freedom  from  the  tyranny  of  the  state.  The  pop- 
ularity of  these  principles  serves,  in  a  large  measure,  to  account 
for  their  rapid  spread  when  the  time  was  fully  come.  Starting 
at  Wittenberg,  in  Germany,  the  movement  spread  to  Switzerland. 
It  extended  to  Holland  and  crossed  over  to  England  and  Scotland. 
The  new  views  completely  replaced  the  old  in  Denmark,  Sweden 
and  Norway.  In  Hungary  it  divided  the  population.  In  France 
it  promised  well  for  a  time,  but  met  with  royal  disfavor,  and  in 
bloody  persecutions  was  almost  blotted  out.  In  Spain  and  Italy  it 
encountered  the  brutalities  of  the  inquisition  and  was  soon 
crushed.  This  extensive  spread  of  the  uprising  shows,  not  only 
how  widely  the  religious  dissatisfaction  prevailed,  but  also  the 
strong  hold  the  new  views  had  obtained  among  the  people.     The 


196         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

reformers  had  no  thought  of  constituting  a  new  church.  Their 
purpose  was  to  bring  the  Church,  already  more  than  amply 
organized,  back  to  the  charter  of  the  New  Testament,  and  plant 
it  once  more  securely  upon  the  foundation  of  the  apostles  and 
prophets,  Jesus  Christ  Himself  being  the  chief  corner-stone. 
The  reformers  no  more  created  truth  than  Columbus  created  the 
American  continent.  What  they  sought  was  to  open  up  once 
more  to  their  countrymen  the  Bible  and  make  known  what  they 
found  therein.  To  Luther  it  was  given  to  be  the  leader  in 
this  new  movement  and  to  state  its  leading  biblical  principles. 
This  he  did  with  an  honesty  and  success  rarely  equaled  in  the 
annals  of  human  leadership,  giving  to  his  people,  according  to  the 
Catholic  historian,  Dollinger,  what  no  other  man  ever  gave  to  a 
people — the  Bible,  the  catechism  and  the  hymn  book.  For  death 
there  is  but  one  remedy,  and  that  is  life.  When  once  death  has 
come  and  life  has  gone,  nature  knows  nothing  of  its  return. 
Life  never  comes  back  again  to  the  house  it  has  deserted.  But 
above  nature  there  is  a  power  of  God  that  can  give  life.  There 
is  One  who  has  said  that  "in  the  time  that  now  is  the  dead  shall 
hear  the  voice  of  the  Son  of  man,  and  they  that  hear  shall  live." 
It  was  this  life  to  which  the  great  Reformer  led  men  back  in  his 
day  that  remade  the  world.  It  was  this  that  made  him  victorious 
in  the  good  fight  for  Protestantism,  which  was.  as  later  history 
has  abundantly  demonstrated,  the  fight  for  truth,  for  freedom  and 
for  righteousness. 

IV 

The  ferment  which  had  been  going  on  in  men's  minds  was  cer- 
tain to  lead  to  an  effort  at  emancipation,  though  no  one  could 
exactly  forecast  when  it  might  burst  forth  or  what  character  it 
might  assume.  When  Luther,  asserting  certain  great  and  living 
principles,  led  men  back  to  the  rich  fields  of  truth  revealed  in  the 
New  Testament,  Latin  Christianity  found  itself  involved  in  a 
death  struggle,  in  which  the  great  piece  of  ecclesiastical  ma- 
chinery, which  had  been  so  patiently  built  up  upon  a  basis  both 
unscriptural  and  unhistorical  and  through  centuries  of  time,  was 
at  last  threatened  with  destruction.  The  cry  for  renewal  of  the 
Church's  life,  and  the  continued  assaults  upon  the  abuses  which 
had  for  so  long  a  time  been  tolerated,  had  done  much  to  alter  the 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  197 

whole  situation,  not  only  outside  but  inside  the  Church.  The 
laxity  which  had  been  tolerated  in  the  tenth  century,  for  example, 
was  no  longer  to  be  regarded  with  allowance  even  in  Rome  itself, 
and  the  utterances  of  the  orthodox  were  to  be  judged  by  stand- 
ards somewhat  in  advance  of  those  hitherto  in  use.  Freedom, 
and  even  license,  of  speech  had  been  allowed  when  it  was  once 
shown  that  the  heresies  of  the  thirteenth  century  had  ceased  to 
be  dangerous.  There  had  been  reformers  in  the  Church  who 
had  expressed  their  indignation  at  its  corruptions  in  safety,  while 
the  big  and  powerful  worldly  organism  called  the  Church  only 
smiled  with  amused  contempt.  But  the  time  came  with  Luther 
when  that  attitude  could  no  longer  be  tolerated.  If  such  a  time 
was  to  pass  never  to  return,  and  the  Church,  which  was  now 
battling  for  its  existence  with  half  of  Europe  threatening  revolt, 
be  forced  to  abandon  its  good-natured  indifference  toward  heresies 
it  could,  if  necessary,  easily  suppress,  then  the  minds  of  men 
must  be  led  back  to  see  what  the  true  Church  of  Christ  really  is. 
They  must  be  led  to  contemplate  it  once  more  as  a  divine  ideal 
as  contrasted  with  a  vast  human  organization,  which  one  of  the 
dogmaticians  of  the  Romish  Church  declared  to  be  "as  tangible  as 
the  Republic  of  Venice."  If  there  was  to  be  any  permanent  re- 
form, someone  must  come  who  would  assail  the  supremacy  of 
the  papal  ecclesiastical  monarchy  over  the  Western  Church  and 
overthrow  its  pretentious  and  arrogant  claims.  It  early  became 
one  of  the  features  of  Luther's  work  to  contend  so  vigorously  an6 
successfully  against  the  extravagant  claims  of  the  medieval 
hierarchy  that,  as  a  consequence,  men  once  more  might  be 
brought  into  direct  and  personal  relation  to  God.  He  overturned 
old  and  venerable  falsehoods  in  order  that  he  might  establish  the 
eternal  verities  of  the  Word  of  God.  The  Church  of  Rome  had 
long  ignored  the  royal  priesthood  of  believers,  and  had  introduced 
the  law  as  a  schoolmaster  expressing  itself  in  an  elaborate 
ecclesiastical  organization.  But  the  leaven  of  the  Gosepl  as  the 
religion  of  God's  pardoning  love,  as  of  God's  working,  and  not 
merely  of  man's  winning,  continued  among  men  and  by  and 
by  began  to  work  effectively.  Medieval  Catholicism  had  come  to 
be  an  externally  guaranteed  knowledge  of  God  and  salvation.  It 
had  developed  a  carefully  articulated  system  necessary  for  an 
externally  conferred  salvation.  Intellectually  the  Church  had 
been  transformed.     From  being  a  congregation  of  the  saints,  a 


198         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

brotherhood  of  good  men,  who  are  one  because  of  a  faith  which 
is  also  a  life  in  Christ,  the  Church  had  become  a  school  in  which 
any  man  may  be  guaranteed  against  error  in  doctrine  and  assured 
of  salvation  by  placing  himself  absolutely  into  the  care  of  the 
visible  Church  and  implicitly  obeying  its  requirements.  "Cathol- 
icism," says  Professor  Sohm,  "arises  from  the  desire  of  the 
natural  man  to  make  religion  external.  It  is  the  natural  religion 
of  the  natural  man.  But  the  natural  man  is  precisely  the  problem 
of  every  redeeming  idea  and  influence  which  has  ever  entered 
the  world.  Judaism,  Islam,  Buddhism,  all  higher  religions,  as 
Harnack  says,  have  passed  through  a  similar  stage,  setting  up  a 
legally  fixed  tradition  as  a  divine  ecclesiastical  order.  Even 
orthodox  Protestantism  has  not  escaped."  "Not  priests  impose 
it  on  guileless  laity,  but  the  laity  create  the  authoritative  priests 
and  the  ecclesiastical  Church  order."  To  conform  the  Church 
to  this  conception  in  the  Middle  Ages  it  had  been  transubstan- 
tiated into  a  legalistic,  worldly  kingdom,  with  the  angry  God  of 
the  Law  on  the  throne  and  Christ  transformed  into  a  stern  and 
unrelenting  judge.  The  official  Church  was  exalted  above  the 
Bible,  and  the  pope,  the  alleged  head  of  the  Church,  was  univer- 
sally feared  as  the  lord  and  master  whom  all  Christians  must 
believe  and  obey.  The  priest  became  the  supernatural!}-  equipped 
functionary,  set  apart  by  God,  and  wielding  the  power  of  Christ, 
who  had  transferred  His  authority  to  him.  The  bishop  had  been 
clothed  by  divine  law  with  the  right  to  the  unlimited  and  un- 
qualified obedience  of  the  faithful,  while  the  state  could  only 
claim  a  limited  and  qualified  allegiance  of  the  citizen.  Should 
the  two  powers  at  any  time  come  into  conflict,  according  to  the 
claim  of  the  carefully  elaborated  ecclestiastical  conception  of 
dominion,  divine  law,  of  course,  must  over-ride  human  law,  the 
Church  as  the  divine  institution  necessarily  becoming  the  arbiter 
whose  authority  the  state  is  bound  to  respect  in  its  particular 
sphere. 

The  ancient  and  once  powerful  dominion  of  Rome  had  passed 
away.  During  the  period  of  its  dissolution  the  Church  had  grown 
stronger  as  the  state  had  grown  weaker.  Rome  perished,  but 
Christianity  had  survived  the  wreck  of  the  empire.  In  the 
break-up  of  the  old  order  the  Church  alone  lived.  It  had  sub- 
dued and  then  absorbed  the  barbarian  hordes  that  swept  down 
from  the  north  and  the  east,  and  so  became  the  center  around 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  199 

which  the  new  order  was  to  be  crystalized.  The  Church  that 
organized  the  new  society  became,  by  right,  the  dominating  force, 
and  so  remained  for  centuries.  But  it  must  be  confessed  that, 
in  spite  of  all  its  unscriptural  claims  and  departure  from  the  law 
of  righteousness  for  long  periods  of  its  history,  being  admin- 
istered mostly  by  men  who  did  err  when  they  most  claimed  to 
be  above  error,  the  Latin  Church  preceding  the  Reformation 
served  Europe  well  in  many  aspects  of  those  troublous  times. 
Its  supremacy  was  the  supremacy  of  law,  if  it  was  not  always  the 
law  of  God.  Its  idea  of  law  was  a  religious  idea.  It  was  born 
of  the  belief  that  God  must  have  an  order,  and  that  this  idea 
must  be  revealed  and  realized  in  the  visible  Church,  which  was  the 
society  that  was  to  express  the  divine  will. 

There  is  a  form  of  religious  romanticism  that  has  painted  for 
us  a  medieval  period  in  the  history  of  the  Church  full  of  seraphic 
sweetness  and  light,  without  even  the  appearance  of  a  cloud.  But 
it  is  an  entirely  inadequate  and  prejudiced  portrayal.  There  is 
the  dark  side  of  the  history  of  the  Church  in  this  period  that  has 
been  presented  in  terrible  distinctness  alike  by  saints  and  sinners, 
by  doctors  of  the  Church  of  Rome  and  heresiarchs  who  antag- 
onized Rome.  Medieval  iniquities  were  upon  the  same  scale  as 
medieval  virtues,  and  there  was  in  all  that  was  contemporary  a 
blending  of  light  with  much  darkness,  and  of  darkening  supersti- 
tion with  a  real  saintliness  in  character. 

But  in  all  fairness  we  are  not  to  judge  that  age  by  the  standards 
of  our  own.  There  were  forces  at  work  in  that  time  that  were 
debasing  and  depressing,  but  there  were  other  forces  that  were 
uplifting  and  silently  at  work  in  anticipation  of  a  better  age 
that  was  ahead,  when  a  man  should  come  to  be  the  leader  whose 
feet  were  shod  with  iron  and  brass,  and  who  was  to  prove 
himself,  with  vast  significance  for  these  later  times,  as  mightier 
than  the  wisdom  of  medieval  theology  and  wiser  than  the  rulers 
of  the  medieval  Church.  "It  would  be  an  ungracious  and  a  fool- 
ish thing,"  says  Prof.  Schaff,  "for  this  generation,  the  heir  of 
twice  as  many  centuries  of  Christian  schooling  as  were  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  to  boast  as  though  Christian 
charity  and  morality  and  devotion  to  high  aims  had  waited  until 
now  to  manifest  themselves."  Resting,  as  it  did,  upon  the 
morality  of  self-renunciation,  the  social  state  of  that  period  was 
superior  to  the  preceding  time  in  all  that  makes  up  civilization  in 


200         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

the  higher  sense  of  that  word.  That  age,  is  indeed,  disgraced  by 
the  conspicuous  badness  of  some  of  the  alleged  successors  of  St. 
Peter,  but  that  badness  is  relieved  by  the  exemplary  virtue  of 
some  others.  There  were  then  pontifical  scoundrels  who  dis- 
graced manhood  as  well  as  the  papal  tiara,  emblematic  of  the 
unscriptural  claim  to  temporal,  spiritual  and  purgatorial  author- 
ity, but  there  were  others  who  were  vastly  better  than  their  times 
and  a  contradiction  of  their  unwarranted  claims.  Against  a 
Stephen  VII,  guilty  of  the  brutal  indecency  of  dragging  the  body 
of  his  dead  predecessor  through  the  streets,  might  be  set  Leo  VII, 
a  man  holy  in  life  and  humble  in  spirit ;  against  John  XII,  accused 
publicly  of  homicide,  perjury,  sacrilege  and  incest,  of  drinking 
wine  in  honor  of  the  devil,  and  of  invoking,  in  his  pontifical 
gambling,  the  aid  of  Jupiter,  Venus  and  other  pagan  gods  and 
goddesses,  may  be  set  John  X,  a  good  man,  zealous  for  the  restor- 
ation of  discipline  in  the  Church  and  the  deliverance  of  his  sub- 
jects from  the  Saracen  invader.  If  it  was  the  time  of  John 
XXIII,  who  had  at  one  time  been  a  pirate  on  the  high  seas,  and 
who  never  was  reformed  from  the  scandalous  profanity  of  his 
piratical  days,  and  who  was  deposed  by  the  Council  of  Constance 
— the  one  creditable  thing  to  be  set  down  to  the  credit  of  that 
council — it  was  likewise  the  time  of  the  virtuous  and  learned 
Sylvester  II,  who  was  a  fitting  successor  of  the  learned,  virtuous 
and  severe  Gregory  V. 

In  attempting  to  estimate  the  permanent  worth  of  the  contribu- 
tion made  by  this  age  to  future  civilization  and  progress  there  has 
frequently  been  error  and  exaggeration,  into  which  it  has  been 
abundantly  easy  to  fall.  There  is  the  error  and  exaggeration, 
on  the  one  side,  of  unduly  depreciating  that  age  of  thought  and 
action  mingled  with  superstition,  an  error  to  which  some  Prot- 
estant writers  have  been  most  addicted.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
encounter  the  error  and  exaggeration  of  magnifying  that  age 
overmuch  and  extolling  it  as  the  "age  of  faith,"  with  the  tacit 
implication  that  all  which  has  come  after  has  been  an  age  of 
unbelief — an  error  into  which  papal  apologists  and  writers  almost 
uniformly  fall.  There  is  much  to  explain  and  account  for  both 
excesses. 

With  all  of  the  unwarranted  claims  made  by  and  for  the 
Church,  which  so  much  needed  to  be  led  back  or  driven  back  to 
New  Testament  ideals,  it  is  a  grave  mistake  to  regard  this  period 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  201 

under  consideration  as  a  time  of  depressing  stagnation  only,  if 
not  of  positive  retrogression.  It  was  a  period  in  the  history  of 
the  human  race  filled  with  a  long  series  of  movements,  changes 
and  developments  in  the  state  of  European  society  which  were 
destined  to  have  an  abiding  influence  on  the  centuries  to  follow. 
The  power  of  the  emperor  and  the  power  of  the  priests — these 
two  keynotes  sum  up  the  history  of  the  ancient  world  from 
Constantine  to  the  Reformation.  Notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
in  this  period  there  was  so  much  that  was  selfish,  venal,  earthly 
and  sensual ;  in  spite  of  the  abuses  that  had  been  accumulating 
through  centuries  and  culminating  in  the  papacy  from  Sixtus  IV 
to  Leo  X,  other  forces  were  at  work  which  have  entered  largely 
into  the  life  of  the  most  enlightened  and  progressive  peoples  of 
our  day.  Questions  raised  by  the  intellectual  refinements  of 
scholasticism,  and  others  about  fastings  and  ceremonialism,  ap- 
peared to  the  popular  mind  to  be  immeasurably  more  important 
than  what  we  should  now  call  the  fundamental  principles  of  right 
and  wrong.  But  in  the  midst  of  all  the  triviality  and  superstition 
there  can  be  no  question  that  in  most  respects  the  religious 
agencies  were  operating  for  good.  There  were  bishops  who  were 
worldly,  wicked  and  apostate,  but  there  were  others  who  were 
sincerely  striving  to  be  true  shepherds  of  the  flock  of  Christ. 
There  were  unworthy  cardinals,  abbots  and  priests,  but  all  did 
not  fall  before  the  temptations  offered  by  the  sinecures  and  ben- 
efices of  the  Church.  A  rising  spirit  of  freedom  was  constantly 
manifesting  itself  in  one  way  or  another.  Let  it  be  remembered 
that  it  was  Duns  Scotus,  known  as  the  "subtle  doctor,"  a  scho- 
lastic of  the  thirteenth  century,  who  anticipated  the  inductive 
method  of  Bacon  and  Newton,  thus  forming  a  communicating 
link  between  the  schools  of  ancient  and  modern  philosophy.  For 
administrative  purposes,  the  ideal  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  the 
union  of  the  Church  and  the  state.  But  in  the  twelfth  century 
men  like  Andius  and  Arnold  of  Brescia  taught,  and  with  much 
acceptance,  that  the  Church  was  suffering  from  its  union  with 
the  state.  True  it  is  that  there  were  disintegrating  forces  at 
work,  but  there  were  other  forces  that  were  highly  constructive, 
and  there  was  passing  over  the  minds  of  men  one  of  those  changes 
which  we  can  neither  define  nor  wholly  account  for.  There  were 
obscuring  shadow's  a-plenty,  but  there  were  also  anticipations  of 
the  dawn  of  that  new  day  in  the  splendor  of  which  we  live. 


202         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

To  make  effective  the  forces  of  righteousness  that  had  not  be- 
come entirely  extinct  during  the  Middle  Ages  what  was  re- 
quired was  not  so  much  a  change  of  constitution,  but  an  inspiring 
co-ordination  and  consolidation  of  those  principles  which  were 
rooted  deeply  in  the  religious  life  of  the  people,  and  which  had 
been  generated  always  by  the  gospel  of  salvation  through  grace. 

A  work  was  needed  which  neither  princes  nor  kings,  bishops 
nor  popes,  could  accomplish,  but  God  alone,  working  through 
His  Word  and  some  man  of  faith  and  leadership.  A  work  of 
both  restoration  and  readjustment  was  the  one  commanding  need 
at  the  close  of  the  medieval  period.  That  work  could  be  done 
only  and  effectively  when  the  individual  soul  would  be  awakened 
by  the  voice  of  the  truth  as  taught  by  Jesus  and  Paul,  and  which, 
once  more  finding  entrance,  could  purify  the  Christian  Church 
and  society.  That  truth  which  had  proven  itself  to  be  more 
powerful  than  Teutonic  or  Slavic  barbarisms — which  neither 
imperialism,  barbarism  nor  ecclesiastical  corruption  could  subdue 
or  expel — proved  itself  once  more  to  possess  stupendous  forces, 
spiritual  and  civic,  which  were  capable  of  organizing  great  states, 
producing  literature,  of  fashioning  and  maintaining  great  re- 
ligious establishments,  and  of  putting  certain  impulses  into  so- 
ciety whose  influences  are  today  unspent. 

But  giving  all  due  credit  to  the  Church  of  that  period,  and 
the  contribution  it  made  to  the  civilization  of  the  times,  it  had 
gone  astray  from  the  ways  of  the  Lord,  and  needed  to  be  brought 
back  from  its  perversions  and  usurpations  and  worldly  ideals,  and 
once  more  planted  on  the  basis  where  it  had  been  founded  by  its 
Head  and  His  apostles.  It  had  to  be  dethroned  as  a  vast  political 
machine,  such  as  it  had  come  to  be,  and  reinstated  as  the  Bride 
of  Christ,  constituted  of  all  who,  in  all  places  and  dominions, 
in  sincerity  and  truth  believe  in  Christ  and  trust  to  His  merits 
and  grace  for  salvation. 

The  Church  is  an  institution  for  the  salvation  of  souls.  It 
had  from  the  beginning  been  entrusted  by  its  Lord  and  Head  with 
the  administration  of  the  means  of  grace.  But  it  had,  during  the 
medieval  period,  taken  on  an  elaborate  legal  system.  In  conse- 
quence of  the  intermixture  and  interchange  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testament  dispensations,  together  with  the  introduction  into  the 
Church  of  elements  of  heathenism,  alien  and  uncongenial  features 
were  early  introduced  into  its  life.     Later  still,  in  the  sympathetic 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  203 

and  reciprocal  relations  that  were  established  between  Christian- 
ity and  the  imperial  throne,  and  the  introduction  of  masses  of 
untutored  and  unregenerate  barbarians  into  the  Church,  and  by 
means  of  methods  that  were  purely  external,  coercive  and  alien 
to  all  true  methods  of  Christian  propagandism,  other  evils  were 
admitted.  In  consequence  of  the  introduction  of  such  extra- 
scriptural  elements  into  the  life  of  the  Christian  community  there 
arose  a  Church  over  which  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel  did  not  exert 
exclusive  control,  and  in  which  the  principles  of  the  earthly 
kingdom  were  accorded  a  dominion  not  warranted  in  the  un- 
mistakable teachings  of  the  New  Testament.  Men  came  to  look 
upon  the  minister  of  religion  as  a  new  representation  of  the  re- 
vived and  reinstated  Levitical  priesthood.  Its  representatives 
were  looked  upon  as  endowed  with  a  peculiar  "character,"  im- 
parted at  the  administration  of  the  sacrament  of  ordination,  that 
had  associated  with  it  miraculous  powers  and  judicial  authority 
that  gave  this  priest  caste  power  not  only  over  the  souls  of  men 
but  over  their  bodies  as  well.  This  power  and  authority  that 
these  men  were  affirmed  to  possess  was  held  to  have  been  trans- 
mitted through  a  professed  "apostolical  succession"  of  bishops, 
whose  claims  had  no  kind  of  foundation  in  the  Scriptures  or  the 
organization  of  the  early  Church,  and  which  had,  in  the  course 
of  the  history  of  the  Church,  been  subjected  to  a  long  series  of 
jolting  contradictions,  extending  from  the  time  of  Leo  "the 
Great"  to  that  of  Leo  X.  These  bishops  possessed  even  greater 
authority  than  the  ordinary  priests  over  whom  they  held  exten- 
sive powers  of  jurisdiction,  while  yet  above  them  there  were 
placed  one  grade  of  the  hierarchical  extension  after  another,  until 
it  reached  its  culmination  in  the  primacy  of  the  pope,  who  was 
claimed  to  be  the  official  successor  of  St.  Peter,  to  whom  there 
had  been  attributed  a  supposed  particular  distinction  and  author- 
ity in  the  company  of  the  first  apostles  of  the  Lord,  who  reigned 
as  the  vicar  of  Christ,  the  lord  over  kings  and  the  vicegerent  of 
heaven.  He  was  the  real  head  of  the  "body  of  Christ."  having, 
in  its  departure  from  the  plain  teaching  of  the  New  Testament, 
been  elevated  to  that  totally  unwarranted  distinction  by  the 
apostate  Church. 

From  top  to  bottom  the  Church  was  a  carefully  constructed 
and  well-regulated  machine,  provided  with  an  elaborate  system 
of  ecclesiastical  courts  that  were  governed  by  an  exact  legal  code, 


204         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

the  canon  law,  and  whose  decrees  it  often  became  the  business  of 
the  state,  usually  in  alliance  with  or  subjection  to  the  Church, 
to  enforce. 

Salvation  through  faith  in  Christ  alone  was  supplanted  by  the 
righteousness  of  ecclesiastically  imposed  good  works.  A  man's 
relation  to  Christ  was  determined  by  his  relation  and  obedience 
to  the  visible  Church.  The  legalism  of  the  Old  Testament  once 
more  came  to  the  front  to  supplant  that  freedom  from  the  law 
and  liberty  in  Christ  for  which  Paul  contended  in  the  conflict  of 
opinions  that  soon  emerged  in  the  history  of  the  early  Church. 
The  beautiful  and  grace-communicating  sacrament  of  the  supper 
instituted  by  our  Lord  gave  place,  in  conformity  to  the  decrees  of 
the  Church  councils  (made  up  in  some  instances,  for  the  most 
part,  of  bad  men),  to  the  mass,  looked  upon  as  a  continually  re- 
peated offering  up  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  our  one  and  all- 
sufficient  High  Priest,  together  with  the  shocking  crudities  of 
transubstantiation.  The  gospel  of  grace  was  transformed  into 
that  heresy,  so  agreeable  to  the  natural  man,  of  salvation  by 
means  of  what  man  can  do  himself,  by  that  which  will  throw  him 
into  the  forefront.  The  Church,  by  law,  had  changed  the  Pauline 
conception  of  freedom  in  Christ  into  a  system  of  external  pre- 
cepts. That  the  papacy  had  performed  some  notable  service  in 
times  past  we  are  not  disposed  to  deny,  but  in  the  main  its  in- 
fluence has  been  to  corrupt  and  pervert  for  its  own  ends  the  faith 
once  for  all  delivered  to  the  saints.  It  has  changed  the  Church 
from  a  spiritual  organism  of  faith,  uniting  all  true  believers  in 
Jesus  Christ,  into  a  worldly  organization,  with  a  man  for  its 
visible  head  and  with  all  the  marks  and  insignia  of  the  kingdoms 
of  this  world.  It  came  to  be  regarded,  as  an  organization,  as 
essential  to  Christianity,  the  visible  Church  and  the  kingdom  of 
God  being  looked  upon  as  identical.  The  works  of  the  Pseudo 
Dionysius,  the  Areopagite,  with  their  supposed  revelation  of  the 
heavenly  hierarchy,  after  which  the  earthly  hierarchy  was  pre- 
sumably modeled,  succeeded  in  imposing  on  the  minds  of  the 
credulous  the  belief  that  the  Church  as  an  institution,  in  the  form 
in  which  it  then  existed  and  now  exists,  was  the  divinely  instituted 
ark  of  safety,  outside  of  which  there  was  no  salvation.  In  the 
end,  accordingly,  Christianity  became  a  mere  form  of  govern- 
ment, and  everything  in  it  and  of  it  must  be  interpreted  from 
that  point  of  view.     The  monastic  vow  of  obedience  was  char- 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  205 

acteristic  of  the  entire  system,  and  from  that  fact  the  whole 
complex  arrangement  of  ascetical  practices  got  its  particular  kind 
of  value.  The  penitential  system  of  the  Church,  too,  was  reduced 
to  a  mere  matter  of  administration.  The  ritual  was  observed  as  an 
'"office"  of  the  Church,  and  all  of  its  features  had  official  validity 
when  observed  with  the  end  of  doing  what  the  Church  requires. 
Official  authority  was  necessary  to  give  validity  to  any  act  of 
worship.  The  virtues  and  graces  which  appear  in  the  lives  of 
men  issue  also  from  the  administrative  sacramental  acts  of  the 
Church.  Even  mental  acts  of  the  Church  were  viewed,  not  so 
much  as  the  utterances  of  that  which  is  the  truth  and  for  truth's 
sake,  but  as  the  authoritative  enactments  of  the  Church,  to  which 
the  intellect  must  humbly  bow  in  unquestioning  submission.  In 
fact,  it  was  the  Church  which  exercised  authority  not  only  over 
the  natural  life  of  men,  but  also  continued  its  jurisdiction  and 
authority  even  beyond  the  frontiers  of  this  present  life  into  the 
world  to  come,  and  terminating  only  at  the  last  judgment. 

The  priesthood  had  become  the  active  Church  and  the  laity  but 
passive  recipients.  For  a  period  of  one  thousand  years,  extending 
from  200  A.  D.  to  1200  A.  D.,  the  people  had  been  gradually  dis- 
possessed of  their  privileges  and  rights.  They  had,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  usurpation  of  the  priesthood,  been  gradually  pre- 
vented from  doing  their  proper  duty  and  service  as  members  of 
the  Church.  Participation  in  the  administration  of  discipline  had 
been  entirely  removed  from  their  hands.  Even  Pope  Leo  the 
Great,  conscientious  and  thorough-going  autocrat  as  he  was,  had 
once  declared  that  "he  who  is  to  preside  over  all  should  be 
elected  by  all."  But  this  permission  was  withdrawn,  though  in 
some  cases  as  late  as  the  eleventh  century  laymen  continued  to 
cast  their  votes  in  the  election  of  bishops.  At  times  this  voting 
was  done  in  an  irregular  and  even  violent  manner.  An  instance 
of  this  may  be  found  in  the  case  of  Ambrose,  the  Governor  of 
Milan,  who  was  only  an  unbaptized  layman  in  the  Church,  and 
who,  while  trying  to  quell  a  tumult  which  had  arisen  in  the  con- 
gregation over  the  election  of  a  bishop,  was  himself  chosen  for 
the  position  by  a  loud  and  tumultuous  acclamation  of  the  people. 
Another  instance  may  be  found  in  the  case  of  the  great  Augustine, 
who,  while  quietly  sitting  as  a  visitor  in  the  church  at  Hippo,  in 
the  midst  of  a  sermon  by  Valerius,  the  pastor,  was  eagerly  called 
upon  by  the  congregation  then  and  there  to  become  the  assistant 


206         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

pastor,  and,  in  the  face  of  his  protestations  and  tears,  was  con- 
strained to  accept  the  office.  But  even  these  outbursts  of  popular 
expression  of  democracy  in  the  Church  afforded  the  ecclesiastics 
of  the  day  something  of  a  reason,  and  more  of  a  pretext,  for 
taking  all  such  privileges  out  of  the  hands  of  the  people.  All 
such  rights  were  afterwards  universally  denied  them,  and,  the 
priesthood  having  become  the  active  Church,  they  were  reduced 
to  subjects  and  mere  passive  recipients. 

The  idea  of  organized  Christianity  as  a  Church  to  be  governed 
by  priests  under  the  control  and  direction  of  the  pope,  the  chief 
of  all  priests,  was  completed  and  perpetuated  in  world-wide  enter- 
prise by  the  Church  of  Rome. 

In  addition,  that  Church  had  developed  the  doctrine  about  pains 
and  penalties  of  the  future  life  into  a  carefully  elaborated  system 
of  moral  and  political  terrorism  and  revenue,  so  that  the  financial 
side  of  the  dogma  of  purgatory  overshadowed  all  else.  Not 
Peter,  nor  Paul,  nor  David,  nor  Abraham,  nor  even  Jehu,  the  son 
of  Nimshi.  to  say  nothing  of  the  Lord  and  Head  of  the  Church, 
could  have  been  conceived  of  as  having  given  sanction  to  a  theory 
of  salvation  as  mercenary  as  that  taught  by  the  Church,  and  which 
aroused  the  indignant  revolt  of  Luther  when  it  was  coarsely  pro- 
pounded by  Tetzel.  Now,  if  there  was  to  be  any  hope  of  reform, 
it  was  not  only  expedient  but  necessary  that  in  the  fulness  of 
time  this  old  temple  of  ecclesiasticism,  unchristian  and  worldly  in 
type  and  organization,  should  be  destroyed,  that  men  might  no 
longer  feel,  when  far  away  from  some  sacred  mountain  or  city  or 
shrine,  that  they  were  in  consequence  away  from  God.  When 
Luther  came  upon  the  stage  it  was  necessary  that  a  humanly  insti- 
tuted priesthood  should  be  stripped  of  its  sanctity  and  unwar- 
ranted claims,  so  that  every  one  of  God's  children  once  again 
might  rejoice  in  the  freedom  and  blessedness  of  immediate  access 
into  the  presence  of  God  the  Father,  solely  upon  the  basis  of  the 
atoning  work  of  the  world's  Redeemer  and  the  sufficiency  of  His 
priestly  intercession. 

This  medieval  Church,  against  the  pretensions  and  abuses  of 
which  the  reformers  revolted  and  contended,  presented  these  three 
main  conceptions :  That  of  the  papal  monarchy,  that  of  the  sacer- 
dotal system  and  that  of  the  inquisition.  The  papacy  insisted 
that  it  must  be  regarded  as  the  final  arbiter  in  all  things  human. 
By  the  famous  bull  of  Pope  Boniface  VIII,  issued  in  1302,  the 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  207 

pope  has  authority  over  two  swords,  the  one  religious  and  the 
other  secular,  and  it  is  declared  to  be  "altogether  necessary  for 
salvation  that  every  human  being  be  subject  to  the  Roman  pon- 
tiff," a  somewhat  queer  and  contradictory  assertion,  it  must  be 
confessed,  in  view  of  the  oft-repeated  words  of  the  only  Lord 
and  Head  of  the  Church,  that  "he  that  believeth  in  Me  hath 
everlasting  life."  And  this  large  claim  made  by  Boniface,  in  his 
famous  bull,  known  as  unam  sanctum,  was  reaffirmed  by  Leo  X, 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  that  only  six  months  before  the 
nailing  up  of  Luther's  theses.  The  sacramental  system,  too,  as 
we  have  seen,  placed  the  priest  at  the  gate  of  heaven  and  vested 
him  with  authority  to  open  or  close.  Without  his  sacerdotal 
mediation  no  man  could  enter  therein.  The  sacraments  which 
he  dispensed  work  magically,  containing  and  conferring  salva- 
tion by  a  virtue  inherent  in  themselves,  and  without  the  applica- 
tion of  which  there  is  no  grace  or  salvation.  By  means  of  the 
methods  of  the  inquistion  the  Church  took  away  the  right  of 
private  judgment  in  matters  of  religion,  making  lawful  the  ex- 
communication and  death  of  all  who  dissent  from  the  dogmas  of 
the  Church,  who  decline  to  retract  and  submissively  return  from 
their  attitude  of  profane  insult  and  rebellion. 

Before  there  could  be  any  permanent  reform  in  the  Church 
these  three  conceptions  of  the  papal  Church  must  be  overthrown. 
They  were  overthrown  by  the  reformers,  who  opposed  to  them 
the  appeal  to  the  open  Bible  and  its  central  teaching,  that  justifi- 
cation is  by  faith  alone,  that  every  man  has  a  right  to  go  imme- 
diately to  the  throne  of  grace  to  find  mercy  and  obtain  help  in 
every  time  of  need,  and  that  to  every  man  must  be  accorded  the 
privilege  of  untrammeled  thinking  in  the  sphere  of  religion.  The 
new  Church  had  to  be  led  back  from  the  apostasies  of  the  old 
and  placed  upon  the  basis  of  restored  principles  drawn  entirely 
from  the  Scriptures.  "The  two  governments,  spiritual  and  tem- 
poral, are  not  to  be  thrown  together  and  mingled  one  with 
another,"  as  said  the  Augsburg  Confession.  To  the  Church  be- 
longs spiritual  authority,  and  spiritual  authority  alone ;  to  the 
state  temporal  authority,  and  temporal  authority  alone.  The 
Catholic  distinction  between  bishops  and  pastors  or  ordinary 
ministers  had  arisen  by  human  ordinance  only.  Hence  neither 
Peter,  nor  any  other  minister  of  the  Word,  may  ascribe  unto 
himself  any  authority  or  supremacy  over  the  churches,  for  St. 


208         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

Paul  teaches  that  the  Church  is  more  than  the  ministers,  and 
that  the  keys,  i.  e.,  the  spiritual  authority,  is  not  given  unto  one 
man  alone  but  to  the  whole  Church.  By  the  old  view,  religion 
had  been  identified  with  the  papal  system,  and  the  often  im- 
moral will  of  the  Church  had  been  enforced  on  men  and  states  as 
the  will  of  God.  But  under  the  new  view  no  polity  was  able  to 
command  conscience  or  coerce  reason.  Religion  could  not  be- 
come an  organized  political  unity  without  ceasing  to  be  religious. 
These  new  principles  of  the  Church  soon  became  victorious 
principles.  They  soon  demonstrated  their  capacity  as  construc- 
tive forces  creating  conditions  best  fitted  to  make  religion  a 
living  moral  power  in  the  state,  and  to  force  the  state  to  stand 
in  its  proper  relation  to  religion,  and  showing  that  the  surest  note 
of  the  Christian  Church  is  that  it  shall  be  working  in  Christ's  way 
for  Christ's  ends. 

V 

Because  of  the  fundamental  importance  of  one  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  all  true  Protestantism,  that  known  as  the  universal 
priesthood  of  believers,  it  is  fitting  that  the  character  and  im- 
portance of  that  doctrine  be  the  subject  of  further  remark. 
With  justification  by  faith  and  the  sole  authority  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, the  two  great  principles  of  the  Lutheran  movement,  there  is 
always  to  be  associated  this  other  doctrine  that  marks  the  an- 
tithesis of  Lutheranism  and  Romanism.  Men  soon  began  to  ask 
the  question  whether  the  Church  was  only  a  sort  of  ecclesiastical 
judicatory  or  a  real  communion  of  the  saints ;  whether  the  Church 
created  the  ministry  or  the  ministry  the  Church;  whether  the 
benefits  of  the  Gospel  are  tied  up  to  a  priestly  order  and  the 
blessings  that  order  claims  to  control,  or  whether  it  is  bound  to 
the  Word  of  God.  It  was  one  of  the  features  of  Luther's  work 
that  he  led  in  the  restoration  of  that  which  had  long  been  for- 
gotten and  denied  by  the  Church  of  Rome,  the  indefeasible  right 
of  personality  in  religion,  popularly  known  as  the  universal  priest- 
hood of  believers — the  social  principle  of  the  Reformation  in  con- 
trast with  the  religiously  privileged  rank  of  the  priesthood.  This 
hierarchical  and  unscriptural  claim  must  be  rejected.  Recog- 
nition and  respect  of  the  individual  is  one  of  the  marks  of  a  true 
Christianity.  By  precept  and  example  our  Lord  restored  the 
worth  and  place  of  the  common  man.     The  papal  policy  in  the 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  209 

Middle  Ages  blotted  out  all  individuality,  making  of  men  mere 
automatons,  destroying  individual  conscience  and  substituting 
the  control  and  direction  of  the  priest,  through  the  tyranny  of  the 
private  confessional.  The  business  of  every  abject  subject  in 
the  ecclesiastical  dominion  was  to  loyally  obey  the  laws  and  en- 
actments of  the  pope,  to  believingly  accept  the  doctrines  approved 
at  Rome  and  fortified  by  a  presumptuous  claim  for  infallibility. 

The  medieval  conception  of  the  Church  was  always  and  every- 
where sacerdotal.  In  its  idea  the  relations  of  the  individual  to 
God  was  always  subordinated  to  his  relation  to  the  priest,  as 
in  the  older  Judaistic  conception  of  religion.  In  the  Romish 
hierarchy  the  pope  occupied  the  place  and  bore  the  name  of  the 
"sovereign  pontiff,"  the  "pontifix  maximus,"  which,  in  the  older 
time  under  Augustus,  belonged  to  the  official  head  of  the  Roman 
religion.  Then,  as  now,  the  ministers  of  religion  formed  a 
hierarchy  and  a  caste  endowed  with  religious  privileges  which 
elevated  them  above  the  people.  The  regularity  of  the  priesthood 
even  was  necessary  to  the  efficacy  of  the  administration  of  the 
functions  and  blessings  of  religion. 

The  Roman  Catholic  system  even  to  this  day  is  the  rule  of 
society  by  a  sacerdotal  class,  which  is  one  of  the  most  pronounced 
characteristics  of  the  system.  The  guidance  of  the  conscience 
of  individuals  and  of  the  policy  of  nations,  so  far  as  their  policy 
may  be  regarded  as  touching  the  province  of  morals  and  re- 
ligion, is  relegated  to  a  body  of  priests,  or,  according  to  the  de- 
crees of  the  Vatican  Council  of  1870,  to  the  head,  who  is  the 
pope.  To  this  body  of  ecclesiastics  there  has  been  committed 
the  right  to  decide  upon  questions  of  the  highest  moment.  It  is 
the  rule  of  a  limited  ecclesiastical  aristocracy,  which  admits  to  its 
ranks  none  whom  it  chooses  to  exclude,  and  which  assumes  the 
exalted  prerogative  of  pronouncing  upon  questions  of  truth  and 
duty,  and  of  conveying  or  withholding  the  blessings  of  salvation. 
Romanism  is  to  this  day  a  corporate  conception  of  the  Christian 
religion.  It  is  a  system  in  which  man  approaches  God  very 
much  the  same  way  as  the  pagan  approached  the  gods — simply 
as  a  member  of  the  state. 

It  was  one  of  the  principles  of  Protestantism  to  deny  this 
prerogative.  It  broke  down  the  wall  of  separation  between  priest 
and  layman.  It  accorded  to  the  laity  the  full  right  to  determine 
for  themselves  those  questions  over  which  the  clergy  had  claimed 


210         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

an  exclusive  jurisdiction,  and  once  more  declared,  with  the  sov- 
ereign voice  of  truth,  that  the  heavenly  good  offered  in  the 
Gospel  is  accessible  to  the  humblest  soul  without  the  intervention 
of  any  mediatorial  priesthood.  It  was  the  Reformation  that  led 
them  once  more  into  the  right  ways  of  the  Lord  in  this  emancipa- 
tion of  the  laity  from  clerical  rule.  The  movement  led  men 
back  to  the  reassertion  of  the  spiritual  priesthood  of  all  believers ; 
to  an  insistence  that  no  mediating  priesthood  besides  that  of  the 
one  all-sufficient  High  Priest,  Jesus  Christ,  could  longer  be  tol- 
erated ;  that  no  human  mediator  could  be  allowed  to  stand  between 
the  soul  and  God,  and  that  no  individual  believer  in  the  Gospel 
Dr  son  of  the  Church  could  shift  his  responsibility  of  confessing 
and  defending  the  truth  to  the  most  elaborately  constituted  hier- 
archical corporation  and  perversion  of  the  true  doctrine  of  the 
Church,  as  that  doctrine  is  properly  defined  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  later  stated  as  'The  congregation  of  the  saints  in  which 
the  Gospel  is  properly  taught  and  the  sacraments  rightly  admin- 
istered." The  question  was  whether  every  Christian  man  has  an 
individual  responsibility  to  God  and  all  equal  rights  in  the  com- 
munion of  saints,  or  whether  they  were  to  submit  to  the  bondage 
of  a  worldly  legalism  expressed  in  papal  traditions  and  controlled 
by  medieval  canon  law.  The  reformers  broke  through  the 
artificial  restrictions  of  the  canon  law  and  once  more  confessed 
the  truth  that  "for  the  true  unity  of  the  Church  it  is  enough  to 
agree  concerning  the  doctrine  of  the  Gospel  and  the  administra- 
tion of  the  sacraments,"  and  showed  that  the  only  true  apostolic 
succession,  that  of  the  faith  once  for  all  delivered  unto  the  saints, 
was  the  important  thing  to  maintain,  while  the  unscriptural  relic 
of  a  merely  mechanical  suggestion  had  to  go.  Faith  makes  Chris- 
tians, and  Christians  make  the  Church.  In  contrast  with  the 
Roman  idea  that  the  Church  was  an  institution  to  save  souls, 
Luther  set  forth  the  idea  that  it  was  an  assembly  of  believing 
Christians — that  it  was  not  so  much  an  institution  as  an  associa- 
tion. His  hammer  not  only  broke  the  chain  that  bound  the 
Bible  to  the  convent  altar,  but  also  that  which  bound  the 
laity  in  a  bondage  enforced  by  priests  and  other  ecclesiastical 
chieftains. 

The  work  of  Luther  has  been  criticized  by  the  representatives 
of  Anglican  tractarianism  as  a  "deformation"— a  movement 
which  sent  the  evangelical  Church  in  Germany  adrift  from  its 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  211 

moorings  of  historical  continuity  with  the  past.  But  such  super- 
ficial critics  are  blind  to  the  fact  that  the  Reformation  of  the 
Church  in  Europe  in  the  sixteenth  century  was  a  necessary  move- 
ment towards  a  fresher  and  fuller  realization  of  personal  relation- 
ship with  God  as  the  birthright  of  every  Christian  soul.  Access 
to  God  had  been  choked  rather  than  assisted  by  the  very  chan- 
nels through  which  it  had  been  designed  that  communion  with 
God  should  be  maintained.  Men  had  to  be  taught  once  more  that 
grace  was  not  something  that  could  be  detached,  as  it  were,  from 
God,  who,  as  some  imperial  personage  directly  inaccessible,  was 
dwelling  far  away  in  the  secluded  center  of  some  great  and 
august  heavenly  court.  The  sacerdotal  mind  and  practice  is  in- 
variably disastrous  to  spiritual  religion,  and  if  pure  and  undefiled 
religion  was  to  be  saved  to  the  world  it  was  necessary  that  men 
should  once  more  be  taught  that  God,  through  Christ,  was  so 
near  to  them  that  an  intervention  of  the  priest  was  an  imperti- 
nence and  an  affront ;  that  the  New  Testament  conception  of  the 
universal  priesthood  of  believers  should  supplant  the  predatory 
priesthood  of  the  old  Church.  The  whole  story  of  the  medieval 
priesthood  is  summed  up  in  Luther's  story  of  his  own  experience 
while  a  schoolboy  at  Magdeburg.  It  was  in  that  city  that  he 
saw  in  a  church,  as  an  altarpiece,  the  painting  of  a  ship  "wherein 
was  no  layman,  not  even  a  prince  or  a  king ;  there  was  no  one  but 
the  pope,  with  his  cardinals  and  bishops  at  the  prow,  with  the 
Holy  Ghost  hovering  over  them,  while  priests  and  monks  were 
at  the  sides  with  their  oars.  Thus  they  went  sailing  heavenward. 
The  laymen  were  swimming  along  in  the  water  around  the  ship. 
Some  of  them  were  drowning,  some  were  pulling  themselves  up 
to  the  ship  by  ropes,  which  the  monks  moved  by  pity,  threw  out 
to  them.  And  there  was  no  cardinal,  nor  bishop,  nor  monk,  nor 
priest  in  the  water,  but  laymen  only."  The  picture  made  a 
powerful  impression  upon  the  receptive  mind  of  the  young 
student,  an  impression  from  which  he  never  seemed  to  have 
escaped.  It  presented  not  only  the  unscripturalness  but  the  in- 
ordinate selfishness  and  absurd  restrictions  of  priestcraft.  It  is, 
accordingly,  not  surprising  that  the  reformers  early  insisted  upon 
the  restoration  of  this  principle  to  its  rightful  place  in  the  teach- 
ing and  life  of  the  Church.  This  cardinal  principle  of  the  Ref- 
ormation flowed  directly  from  the  biblical  principle  and  experi- 
ence of  justification  by  faith.     In  this  there  is  a  vital  relation. 


212         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

The  Bible  clearly  teaches  that  Christ's  people  are  all  "kings  and 
priests  unto  the  most  high  God" ;  that  they  constitute  "a  royal 
priesthood,"  and  when  Christ  made  atonement  for  the  sins  of 
the  world  upon  the  cross  "the  veil  of  the  temple  was  rent  in 
twain,"  symbolizing  that  the  individual  soul  is  to  be  brought 
henceforth  into  direct  contact  with  God  in  Christ,  without  any 
human  or  angelic  mediators ;  that  Christ  Himself  is  the  only 
mediator;  that  in  Him  each  believer  is  reconciled  to  God  through 
the  simple  act  of  faith,  and  that  thus  there  is  no  need  of  a 
hierarchy  of  priests  as  a  special  class  or  order  to  mediate  between 
God  and  man ;  that  the  ministry,  even,  does  not  constitute  a 
special  order  of  men,  but,  like  other  Christians,  belong  to  the 
universal  priesthood,  needing  pardon  and  salvation  on  the  same 
terms ;  that  this  ministry  is  only  a  divinely  instituted  office  in  the 
Church,  the  function  of  the  members  of  that  office  being  to  preach 
the  word  and  administer  the  sacraments. 

When  Luther  stood  up  and  defied  the  Church  of  his  day  he  took 
his  stand  upon  his  inalienable  rights  as  a  man — upon  rights 
which  Christ  Himself  had  recognized,  and  to  which  He  had 
appealed.  The  Church  said  to  him :  "You  are  not  fit  to  decide 
in  matters  of  faith  for  yourself,  and  must  believe  what  the  Church 
tells  you  to  believe.  You  cannot  approach  God  directly  and  for 
yourself;  you  must  draw  near  to  Him  through  the  Church,  and 
access  is  mediated  by  the  priesthood."  To  all  that  Luther's  an- 
swer was  clear,  defiant  and  invincible.  He  said :  "Get  quit  of 
the  pope,  get  rid  of  the  priests,  rid  of  all  that  stands  between  the 
individual  soul  and  God.  Let  God  and  the  soul  stand  face  to 
face.  Let  God  and  the  soul  know  and  be  known  to  each  other. 
Here,  in  this  immediate  knowledge  given  by  God,  I  stand ;  I  can 
do  no  other ;  God  help  me,  for  God  commands  me."  His  watch- 
word, that  summed  up  his  belief,  was  justification  by  faith — , 
that  faith  which  signified  a  face-to-face  knowledge  of  God,  and 
that  justification  that  meant  peace  in  the  conscience  when  God's 
voice  is  heard,  reverenced,  believed  and  obeyed.  That  was  the 
cry  that  wakened  Germany  and  called  its  people  back  to  newness 
of  life. 

In  August,  1520,  there  appeared  what  is  known  as  "The  Ad- 
dress to  the  German  Nobility."  It  is  an  unsparing  arraignment 
of  the  abuses  of  the  Church,  and  a  ringing  appeal  to  the  German 
nation  to  take  in  hand  the  reformation  of  Christianity  because 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  213 

the  priests  of  religion  had  become  unmindful  of  their  duty.  In 
one  of  the  notable  passages  in  that  writing  the  Reformer  ex- 
presses his  views  on  this  subject.  "There  is  no  difference,"  says 
he,  "among  Christians  save  of  office  alone.  We  are  all  Chris- 
tians by  a  higher  consecration  than  pope  or  bishop  can  give. 
The  bishop's  consecration  is  just  as  if,  in  the  name  of  the  whole 
congregation,  he  took  one  member  out  of  the  community  and 
commanded  him  to  exercise  the  powTer  for  the  rest,  in  the  same 
way  as  if  ten  co-heirs  as  king's  sons  were  to  choose  one  from 
among  them  to  rule  over  their  inheritance;  they  would  all  of 
them  still  remain  kings  and  have  equal  power,  although  one  is 
ordered  to  govern.  If  a  little  company  of  Christian  laymen  were 
taken  prisoners  and  carried  away  to  a  desert,  and  had  not  among 
them  a  priest  consecrated  by  a  bishop,  and  were  there  to  agree 
to  elect  one  of  them,  married  or  unmarried,  and  were  to  order 
him  to  baptize,  to  celebrate  the  mass,  to  absolve  and  to  preach, 
this  man  would  be  as  truly  a  priest  as  if  all  the  bishops  and  all 
the  popes  had  consecrated  him.  A  priest,  therefore,  in  Chris- 
tendom should  be  nothing  but  an  official ;  as  long  as  he  holds  his 
office  he  has  precedence  over  others ;  if  he  be  deprived  of  it,  he  is 
a  peasant  and  citizen  like  the  rest.  A  cobbler,  a  smith,  a  peasant, 
every  man,  has  the  office  and  function  of  his  calling,  and  yet  all 
alike  are  consecrated  priests  and  bishops,  and  every  man  in  his 
work  must  be  useful  and  beneficial  to  the  rest." 

Upon  nothing  did  Luther  continue  to  insist  more  stubbornly 
than  this  great  truth,  that  the  real  spiritual  estate  consists  of  the 
whole  body  of  believers  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  they  are  spiritual 
because  Jesus  has  made  all  His  followers  priests  to  God  and  to 
Christ.  He  insists  that  it  is  foolish  to  say  that  the  pope  alone 
can  interpret  Scripture,  and  that  if  that  were  true,  where  is  the 
need  of  the  Scriptures  at  all  ?  In  that  event,  he  says,  "let  us  burn 
Ihem  and  content  ourselves  with  the  unlearned  gentlemen  at 
Rome,  in  whom  the  Holy  Ghost  alone  dwells,  who,  however,  can 
dwell  in  pious  souls  only.  If  I  had  not  read  it,  I  could  never  have 
believed  that  the  devil  should  have  put  forth  such  follies  at  Rome 
and  find  a  following." 

The  importance  of  this  principle  of  the  Lutheran  movement 
has  been  widely  recognized  and  its  deep  significance  emphasized. 
"The  universal  priesthood  of  Christians,"  says  Luthardt,  "is  a 
great  truth,  for  whose  rediscovery  and  recognition  we  are  in- 


214         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

debted  to  the  Reformation,  and  from  whose  admission  no  misuse 
that  may  be  made  of  it  must  be  allowed  to  deter  us.  It  is  based 
upon  the  Reformation  perception  that,  though  the  individual  is 
brought  to  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  by  the  ministrations  of  the 
Church,  his  faith  is  not  to  stop  at  the  stage  of  dependent  nonage, 
but  to  advance  to  independent  certainty  of  that  salvation,  the 
knowledge  of  which  he  owes  to  the  Church.  Every  believer  is  a 
priest,  i.  e.,  he  has  through  Christ  direct  access  to  God  in  Christ, 
and  it  is  at  once  his  privilege  and  his  duty  to  offer  to  God  the 
gifts  and  sacrifices  of  his  prayers  and  life.  This  is  the  first  and 
also  the  chief  meaning  of  the  universal  priesthood.  It  is,  how- 
ever, true  that  this  does  not  exhaust  it.  For  as  the  Old  Testa- 
ment priest  returned  from  the  sanctuary,  where  he  had  been 
offering  prayers,  to  bless  the  people,  so,  too,  it  is  the  privilege 
and  duty  of  the  New  Testament  priest,  i.  e.,  of  the  Christian,  to 
be  a  blessing  to  others,  by  those  works  of  love  which  prove  the 
reality  of  his  faith." 

One  of  the  most  accomplished  and  qualified  theologians  of 
our  own  Church  and  day,  in  writing  of  this  doctrine,  has  said  that 
"never  since  the  first  days  of  Christianity  had  religion  been  made 
so  much  a  personal  relation  to  God  instead  of  an  institutional 
conformity ;  an  individual  consciousness  of  riches  in  God  by  faith 
instead  of  what  a  visibly  organized  Church  would  grant  to  man. 
The  right  and  duty  of  direct  approach  to  God  without  the  inter- 
vention of  a  priesthood  was  regained  from  the  position  of  the 
freedom  of  the  Christian  which  faith  in  Christ  vouchsafes.  The 
right  of  the  personality  to  possess  what  he  had  in  his  mind,  soul 
and  experience,  as  against  a  dominating  Church,  the  freedom  of 
the  individual  as  against  organization — this  was  a  great  step  in  the 
progress  of  Christian  humanity." 

Considering,  now,  its  fundamental  importance  in  itself  and 
in  its  applications,  it  is  not  surprising,  influenced  as  he  always 
was  by  his  rare  insight  into  the  truths  of  the  Scriptures,  that 
Luther  should  have  grappled  as  he  did  with  the  dogmas  lying  at 
the  roots  of  sacerdotalism,  and  that  Christendom,  in  consequence, 
became  involved  in  a  conflict  where  quarter  could  neither  be 
asked  nor  given.  From  his  day  to  ours  this  is  the  rock  on 
which  all  attempts  at  reunion  of  a  genuine  Protestantism  with  all 
sacerdotal  expressions  of  Christianity  have  been  wrecked  and  will 
continue  to  be  wrecked.     Tt  is  this  principle  which  has  delivered 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  215 

men  from  the  vague  fear  of  the  clergy,  and  which,  under  Luther's 
influence,  incited  them  to  arise  in  their  might  and  assist  in  the 
Reformation  so  much  needed. 

The  papal  system  had  answered  man's  search  for  God  by  bid- 
ding him  leave  it  to  the  ordained  officials,  but  the  reinstatement 
of  this  principle  in  the  life  of  the  Church  once  more,  as  it  were, 
ushered  man  straight  into  the  presence  of  his  Creator,  with  no 
human  intermediary  to  come  between  man  and  his  highest  good. 
It  once  more  bade  every  human  mediator  stand  out  of  the  way, 
and  God  was  again  heard  saying  to  men  as  He  had  once  said  to 
Ezekiel,  "Stand  upon  thy  feet  and  I  will  speak  to  thee." 

The  man  who  stands  where  only  Christ  should  stand,  between 
man  and  God,  obscures  faith  and  hides  God  behind  his  office  and 
his  rites.  The  Reformation  was  a  great  attempt  to  escape  from 
what  was  in  fact  a  pagan  element  which  had  been  introduced  into 
Christianity,  and  to  get  back  into  a  purer  and  nobler,  because  a 
more  primitive,  aspect  of  the  Christian  religion.  It  was  a  revolt, 
in  the  last  analysis,  of  the  people  against  the  hierarchy.  A  few 
simple  religious  truths  opened  the  way  to  yet  larger  liberties. 
These  principles  under  Luther's  leadership  established  the 
democracy  of  the  saints,  and  prepared  the  way  for  the  coming  of 
the  larger  democracy  and  virtually  for  all  the  liberty  we  now 
enjoy. 

VI 

The  incomparably  great  questions  of  human  life  are  those 
which  relate  to  the  existence,  the  character,  the  government  and 
providence  of  God,  and  to  man  as  created  in  God's  image  and 
considered  as  the  creature  of  His  power  and  the  subject  of  His 
law.  The  questions  which  thus  pertain  to  God  and  man,  and  to 
the  relationships  existing  between  the  two,  will  always  emerge 
as  the  supreme  questions  to  every  one  who  will  properly  and 
candidly  consider  them.  He  will,  of  necessity,  be  driven  to  look 
upon  them  as  the  questions  of  deepest  and  widest  interest,  con- 
fronting all  men  with  an  imperative  summons  to  serious  thinking 
and  action.  It  is,  accordingly,  the  gravity  of  the  questions  and 
interests  involved  which  makes  of  the  problem  of  authority  in 
religion  a  matter  of  such  vital  concern,  the  really  "burning  ques- 
tion" of  these  and  all  earlier  times.  "Truth,"  said  an  English 
philosopher,    "is    the    most    unbending    and    uncompliable,    the 


216         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

most  necessary,  firm,  immutable  and  adamantine  thing  in  the 
world.  Of  no  sort  of  truth  may  this  be  as  persistently  affirmed 
as  of  the  truth  which  is  distinctively  religious."  In  consequence 
of  this  truthful  affirmation  it  may  be  said  that,  notwithstanding 
the  protracted  assertions  made  in  behalf  of  notoriously  objection- 
able hypotheses,  proclaimed  to  be  within  the  limits  of  liberty 
allowed  to  scholarship  and  opinion,  it  is  a  matter  of  the  gravest 
concern  in  the  sphere  of  religion  whether  the  question  as  to 
what  is  to  be  looked  upon  as  indisputable  be  answered  after  the 
fashion  of  the  Unitarian  mystic,  James  Martineau;  the  gifted 
pervert  from  Anglicanism  to  Romanism,  John  Henry  Newman, 
or  of  those  evangelicals  who  postulate  and  believe  in  a  divinely 
inspired  revelation  from  God  such  as  we  have  in  the  Bible, 
consisting  of  the  canonical  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments. 

The  free  inquiry  that  had  been  developed  in  Europe  in  con- 
nection with  the  revival  of  learning  could  not  be  smothered  by 
mere  external  authority,  and  hence  it  is  not  surprising  that  this 
principle  in  modern  times  has  been  weakened,  and  that  the  unrea- 
soning docility  and  blind  deference  to  ecclesiastical  dominance 
which  characterized  the  life  of  the  Middle  Ages  should  have  be- 
come greatly  limited.  Whether  it  be  the  tendency  of  a  reac- 
tionary movement  to  swing  to  an  opposite  extreme,  or  whatever 
may  be  the  cause,  certain  it  is  that  since  the  early  Protestants 
disallowed  the  functions  claimed  by  the  Church  of  Rome  in  the 
good  fight  of  the  Reformation,  there  has  been,  in  wide  circles,  a 
growing  and  wide-spread  aversion  to  authority  in  the  field  of  re- 
ligion. It  is  an  inadmissible  assumption,  however,  that  true 
Christianity  consists  merely  of  a  collection  of  dogmas  arbitrar- 
ily demanding  assent  on  merely  external  grounds  and  affirmations 
of  authority,  and  that  it  coerces  conviction  and  duty  by  the  asser- 
tion of  certain  terrors  and  punishments  in  case  of  non-acceptance. 
This  is  to  mistake  the  entire  genius  of  the  Christian  religion.  On 
this  question  of  authority  in  religion  there  are  two  extremes. 
There  is  the  merely  external  view  that  would  rest  everything  on 
the  mere  word  of  authority,  and  giving  no  value  to  any  proof 
but  that  of  miracles,  regarding  all  human  judgment  as  to  the 
truth  and  worth  of  Christian  doctrines  as  of  no  account.  The 
other  extreme  is  to  be  found  in  the  rationalistic  or  mystical  posi- 
tion that  nothing  is  to  be  received  except  that  which  commends 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  217 

itself  to  the  human  understanding  or  that  which  is  felt  to  be  true. 
The  right  position — that  which  is  apostolic  in  character  and  which 
was  reaffirmed  at  the  Reformation — is  neither  of  these. 

One  of  the  theories  regarding  the  origin  of  the  movement, 
that  of  Guizot,  asserts  that  it  was  primarily  an  insurrection 
against  authority.  In  the  judgment  of  that  able  interpreter  of 
civilization  it  was  an  effort  to  deliver  the  human  reason  from  the 
bonds  of  authority ;  "an  insurrection  of  the  human  mind  against 
the  absolute  power  of  the  spiritual  order."  It  was  not  an  acci- 
dent, the  result  of  some  casual  circumstance,  nor  a  squabble  be- 
tween rival  monks,  as  the  pope  alleged,  in  which  an  Augustinian 
fell  to  assailing  certain  practices  of  a  Dominican.  The  one  in- 
fluential cause  was  the  dominant  desire  of  the  human  mind  for 
freedom.  Free  thought  and  inquiry  are  the  legitimate  product 
and  the  real  intent  of  the  movement.  Such  is  the  interpretation 
of  Guizot.  In  entire  harmony  with  this  theory  of  the  author  of 
"Civilization  in  Europe,"  Romanists  have  also  always  maintained 
that  Luther's  assault  on  the  hierarchy  in  the  sixteenth  century 
broke  up  the  foundations  of  faith  in  western  Europe,  and  for 
this  he  deserves  to  be  held  in  eternal  infamy  and  have  the  chief 
place  among  the  heresiarchs  who  have  vexed  the  Church.  The 
right  of  private  judgment  is,  in  the  opinion  of  such  writers,  the 
chief  glory  of  Protestantism.  Thus  it  comes  that  the  champions 
of  Romanism  and  the  supporters  of  free  thought  are  practically 
agreed  in  attributing  to  Luther  and  Protestantism  a  large  measure 
of  the  responsibility  for  that  form  of  modern  unbelief  which  is 
distrustful  of  everything  supernatural.  It  has  been  affirmed  that 
free  inquiry  and  revolt  against  authority  were  thus  marks  of  the 
Reformation,  and  that,  therefore,  those  who,  in  the  exercise  of 
the  right  of  private  judgment  in  matters  of  religion,  have  lost 
their  faith  in  Christianity,  have  a  right  to  claim  Luther  as  one 
of  the  great  leaders  in  the  movement  which  has  terminated  in 
their  emancipation  from  all  religious  authority  and  the  abrogation 
of  every  species  of  supernaturalism. 

But  it  is  a  gross  perversion  and  an  entire  misapprehension  of 
the  spirit  of  that  epoch-making  movement  to  characterize  the 
Reformation  as  a  revolt  against  all  authority  in  matters  of  re- 
ligious belief  and  practice,  and  a  nullification  of  all  standards  in 
the  matters  pertaining  to  man's  higher  nature  and  thought.  It 
was  a  revolt  against  an  arrogant  and  presumptuous  hierarchy 


218         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

which  claimed  to  be  the  permanent  incarnation  of  Christ,  the  body 
of  the  Lord,  the  organ  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  equally  with  Scripture, 
able  to  guide  to  God,  and  assuming  to  be  alone  competent  to 
determine  the  meaning  of  God's  revealed  and  inspired  Word. 
That  movement  in  the  sixteenth  century  was  a  rout  of  papal  mar- 
plots, not,  in  the  name  of  freedom,  from  all  authority,  but  for  the 
restoration  of  the  only  one  safe  rule  of  faith  and  practice.  It 
was  the  restoration  of  an  authority  which  was  believed  by  devout 
and  holy  and  learned  men  to  be  true  against  an  authority  that 
had  been  found  to  be  false,  arbitrary  and  unethical.  It  was  not 
a  struggle  on  behalf  of  the  competency  of  the  individual  Chris- 
tian man,  without  a  revelation  from  God,  to  answer  the  most 
solemn  and  awful  questions  concerning  himself,  his  duty  and  his 
destiny,  so  much  as  a  struggle  of  the  competence  and  right  of  the 
individual  Christian  to  recognize  for  himself  the  voice  of  God 
when  God  speaks  in  His  Word,  and  to  understand  the  divine 
meaning  of  that  Word.  It  was  not  so  much  a  revolt  against 
authority  as  it  was  against  usurpation.  The  particular  kind  of 
authority  which  was  now  claimed  for  the  Scriptures  was  a  very 
different  thing  from  that  which  had  been  exercised  over  men  since 
the  days  of  the  consolidation  of  the  hierarchy,  with  its  unwar- 
ranted claims  to  direct  the  thinking  and  control  the  consciences  of 
men.  It  was  the  authority  of  a  father  over  his  children  as  con- 
trasted with  the  authority  of  a  master  over  his  slaves.  Faith 
and  freedom  were  reconciled  in  the  recognition  of  this  new  idea 
of  authority,  for  faith  was  the  highest  act  of  freedom,  and 
because  the  soul  recognized  for  itself  in  God's  divinely  inspired 
rule  of  faith  and  practice  a  divine  majesty  and  glory  and  word 
of  truth,  it  yielded  its  obedience  and  its  trust.  Let  it  be  under- 
stood, then,  that  no  right-thinking  or  ethically  sound  man  is 
eager  to  claim  intellectual  freedom  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
abrogate  all  authority  in  any  sphere.  Such  was  never  the 
attitude  of  the  reformers.  As  to  the  source  and  seat  of  that 
authority  there  have  been  three  chief  answers  ;  that  of  the  Roman- 
ist, who  locates  it  in  the  Church  ;  that  of  the  Rationalist,  who  finds 
it  in  the  human  reason,  and  that  of  the  real  Protestant  evan- 
gelical, who  finds  it  in  the  Word  of  God  as  the  only  infallible 
rule  of  faith  and  practice. 

A  favorite  method  of  describing  the  theological  or  doctrinal 
principles  which  gave  distinctive  shape  to  the  Reformation  is  to 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE 'MOVEMENT  21° 

classify  them  under  two  heads,  tht&jne  ot  '  if  known  as  the 

"formal"  and  the  other  as  the  "material  principle  of  the  i 
ment.  This  was  the  classification  made  by  the  well-known  his- 
torian, the  late  Dr.  Dorner,  in  his  great  work  entitled  the  "His- 
tory of  Protestant  Theology."  But  back  of  both  of  these  prin- 
ciples we  find  that  fundamental  impulse  which  must  inspire  every  " 
genuine  revival  of  religion,  such  as  the  Reformation  was,  and 
that  is  the  earnest  desire  of  the  human  soul  to  come  near  to 
God,  the  yearning  to  come  into  rightful  relations  with  Him  who 
has  revealed  himself  for  salvation  in  our  Lord  and  Saviour 
Jesus  Christ.  Both  the  formal  and  material  principles  are  united 
in  and  spring  out  of  this  desire  after  God,  and  that  salvation 
which  is  the  gift  of  the  divine  benignity.  All  of  the  reformers 
believed  that  in  His  divinely  inspired  Word  God  was  speaking  to 
His  people  even  as  He  had  spoken  to  them  in  earlier  days  by  the 
mouth  of  prophets  and  apostles.  In  their  estimate  of  religion  the  - 
people,  who,  having  the  Bible  in  their  own  hands,  translated  into 
a  language  which  they  understood  out  of  the  original  languages, 
the  Hebrew  and  the  Greek,  in  which  that  revelation  had  been 
expressed,  could  hear  God  speaking  to  them,  and  to  that  Word 
they  could  resort  for  instruction,  warning  and  admonition,  for  en- 
lightenment in  times  of  ignorance,  for  fellowship  with  the  Highest 
and  strength  for  daily  living.  They  taught  that  in  the  Bible  all 
believers  could  hear  God  speaking  to  them  directly  and  authori- 
tatively, and  that  He  could  be  heard  by  all  who  had  the  Bible  in 
their  hands.  The  Reformation  doctrine  of  the  Scriptures  thus  \ 
expresses  in  the  most  certain  way  the  fulfilment  of  the  yearning 
for  entrance  into  the  presence  of  God,  which  is  the  underlying 
and  primary  principle,  not  merely  of  the  Lutheran  Reformation, 
but  of  every  revival  of  religion  that,  in  the  unrestricted  use  of  that 
word,  has  had  any  permanent  influence  among  men.  The  great 
work  accomplished  in  that  movement  was  not  the  result  of  some 
genius,  or  profound  philosopher,  or  far-seeing  statesman.  It  was 
not  brought  about  by  Luther's  rare  endowments,  his  courage,  and 
his  great  moral  force.  We  may  appraise  his  gifts  as  being  im- 
mensely greater  than  those  of  any  of  the  valiant  defenders  of  the 
truth  since  the  days  of  St.  Paul.  The  most  exalted  estimate  of 
the  Reformer  as  an  unsurpassed  moral  force,  when  there  was  so 
much  of  wit  and  sagacity,  ingenuity,  cunning  and  treachery  ar- 
rayed against  him,  does  not  explain  his  success.     That  success  is 


220         LUiffl  SH    OV'r  HE  XVI  CENTURY 

traceable  to  bm  or  ,  t  or.  tin  inherent  in  the  revealed  Word  of 
God,  through  winch  the  Holy  Spirit  worketh  when  and  where  it 
pleaseth  Him.  No  man  knew  that  better  than  Luther  himself. 
"God's  Word,"  says  he,  "has  been  my  sole  study  and  concern,  the 
sole  subject  of  my  preaching  and  writing.  Other  than  this,  I 
have  done  nothing  in  the  matter.  This  same  Word  has,  while  I 
slept  or  made  merry,  accomplished  this  great  thing."  It  was 
this  truth  revealed  in  the  sacred  Scriptures  that  was  powerful 
enough  to  call  men  from  death  and  lead  them  back  to  the  true 
source  of  life,  from  which  at  last  they  were  once  more  to  obtain 
the  reassuring  answer  given  to  the  insistent  cry  of  men :  Who 
shall  give  us  the  truth,  the  final  and  authoritative  expression  of 
truth,  in  the  great  matter  of  the  soul's  salvation  and  the  recovery 
of  men  to  rightful  relations  with  God,  and  restored  peace  and 
reconciliation?  The  very  first  words  of  Luther's  work  as  a  re- 
former make  this  appeal  to  the  Scriptures,  for  the  opening  words 
of  the  theses  nailed  on  the  Wittenberg  Church  door  are  these: 
"When  our  Lord  and  Master  Jesus  Christ  said,"  while  the  con- 
clusion contains  the  same  appeal  in  these  words :  "I  am  not  so 
senseless  as  to  be  willing  that  the  Word  of  God  should  be  made 
to  give  place  to  fables  devised  by  human  reason" — an  appeal 
that  in  that  day  and  generation  of  papal  authority  and  usurpation 
sounded  strangely.  In  the  matters  of  religion  no  man  has  author- 
ity to  speak  for  God,  for  the  Scripture  is  the  only  source  of  doc- 
trine, and  upon  that  to  the  last  the  Reformer  stubbornly  insisted, 
for  at  the  end,  in  the  last  sermon  preached  at  Wittenberg,  he  said : 
"I  shall  swerve  not  one  finger's  breadth  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Lord  who  said,  'Hear  ye  Him.'  " 

This  principle  found  its  best-known  public  expression  in  the 
courageous  and  defiant  answer  made  by  Luther  in  April,  1521,  to 
the  Imperial  Diet  assembled  at  Worms,  when  the  Emperor, 
Charles  V,  had  demanded  that  he  should  retract.  To  this  de- 
mand the  brave  Reformer  made  this  famous  reply :  "Since  your 
Imperial  Majesty,  Electoral  and  Princely  Graces,  demand  a 
simple,  artless  and  true  answer,  I  shall  give  one  which  shall  have 
neither  horns  nor  teeth.  Unless  I  am  overcome  and  convinced  by 
proofs  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  or  by  manifestly  clear  grounds  and 
reasons — for  I  believe  neither  the  pope  nor  the  councils  alone — 
because  it  is  an  open  and  known  fact  that  they  have  often  erred 
and  opposed  each  other,  and  I  am  convinced  by  those  passages 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  221 

adduced  and  introduced  by  me  (and  my  conscience  is  bound  in 
God's  Word)  I  can  or  will  recant  nothing,  since  it  is  neither  safe 
nor  advisable  to  do  aught  against  conscience.  Here  I  stand,  I  can- 
not do  otherwise.     Gold  help  me !     Amen." 

In  view  of  the  great  principles  involved  it  is  not  surprising  that 
wise  and  sagacious  interpreters  of  history  and  the  entire  Prot- 
estant world  should  have  come  to  think  that  four  o'clock  on  the 
afternoon  of  April  18,  1521,  was  one  of  the  world's  most  decisive 
hours,  and  that  Frederick  of  Saxony  should  have  exclaimed, 
"How  grandly  did  Brother  Martin  speak  before  the  Emperor 
and  the  estates  of  the  Empire!"  That  battle  ended  in  victory 
over  papal  tyranny,  not  only,  but  led  men  back  once  more  from 
the  unwarranted  and  often  contradictory  decrees  of  councils  and 
popes  to  the  clear  teaching  of  the  Word  of  God,  which  each  man 
was  to  read  with  his  own  and  not  another's  eyes,  and  to  which 
they  were  to  bow  in  all  matters  of  faith  and  practice.  Hence- 
forth men  were  to  be  released  from  all  authority  of  the  merely 
external  institutions  of  religion.  No  man  on  earth  has  the  right 
to  tell  another  man  who  is  a  Christian  what  he  must  do  to  please 
God,  or  to  promise  him  salvation,  for  God  has  done  both,  and  that 
in  an  authoritative  revelation.  Luther  rose  to  utter  a  solemn  pro- 
test against  every  practice  that  ran  counter  to  that.  Accused  of 
breaking  the  laws  of  the  Church,  he  uniformly  pointed  to  the 
Scriptures,  and  proved  that  the  laws  of  the  Church  are  the  com- 
mandments of  men.  Being  asked  to  compromise,  he  declared 
that  there  could  be  no  compromise  with  the  truth  of  the  Word  of 
God.  The  battles  of  the  Reformation  were  largely  won  by  this 
constant  and  insistent  appeal  to  Holy  Scripture.  In  Luther's 
thinking,  that  Word  is  primarily  the  promises  of  God  in  the 
Gospel  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  On  this  language  his  own  ex- 
planation or  comment  is  this :  "One  thing  and  one  thing  only  is 
necessary  for  Christian  life,  righteousness  and  liberty.  That  one 
thing  is  the  most  holy  Word  of  God,  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 
*  *  *  The  soui  can  do  without  all  things  except  the  Word  of 
God,  and  where  this  is  not,  there  is  no  help  for  the  soul  in  any- 
thing else  whatsoever.  *  *  *  Nor  was  Christ  sent  into  the 
world  for  any  other  ministry  than  that  of  the  Word.  *  *  * 
You  ask.  what  is  this  Word  of  God  and  how  shall  it  be  used,  since 
there  are  so  many  words  of  God?  I  answer,  the  Apostle  explains 
that  in  Romans  1.     The  Word  is  the  Gospel  of  God  concerning 


222         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

His  Son,  Who  was  made  flesh,  suffered,  rose  from  the  dead  and 
was  glorified  through  the  Spirit  Who  sanctifies."  Because  the 
Word  of  God  is  the  promise  of  salvation  through  Christ,  Luther 
can  call  it  "the  Word  of  life,  of  truth,  of  light,  of  peace,  of 
righteousness,  of  salvation,  of  joy,  of  liberty,  of  wisdom,  of 
power,  of  grace,  of  glory  and  of  every  blessing."  He  can  say, 
"the  soul  can  do  without  everything  except  the  Word  of  God." 
He  can  declare,  "Through  faith  alone,  without  works,  the  soul  is 
justified  by  the  Word  of  God." 

The  Church  of  Rome  had  set  up  other  standards  of  authority, 
all  of  them  purely  human,  such  as  tradition,  the  teaching  of  the 
Church  fathers,  the  decisions  of  councils,  and  all  of  them  co- 
ordinate with  the  Bible.  But  for  Luther  and  from  his  day  for  all 
Protestants,  the  authority  that  is  purely  religious  is  the  authority 
of  that  Word  which  is  the  means  by  which  we  come  to  faith,  the 
one  means  by  which  we  are  brought  into  contact  with  Christ  and 
instructed  in  the  significance  and  meaning  of  His  life.  Thus  the 
Lutheran  Reformation  provided  again  the  occasion  for  laying 
the  foundation  stone  of  Christianity  and  the  reaffirmation  of  the 
fundamental  principle  that  the  Word  of  God  is  the  ultimate 
ground  of  appeal  in  all  religious  questions  and  the  final  arbiter  in 
all  doctrinal  contentions  and  differences ;  as  the  Lutheran  Formula 
of  Concord  says,  "the  only  rule  and  measure  according  to  which 
all  doctrines  and  all  leaders  ought  to  be  judged." 

At  the  time  of  the  Reformation  and  for  centuries  before,  the 
Church  of  Rome  had  drifted  to  the  place  where  it  placed  the 
decisions  of  popes  and  the  contradictory  decrees  of  councils  above 
the  plain  and  simple  meaning  of  the  Bible  as  received  and  inter- 
preted by  the  enlightened  private  judgment  of  every  Christian. 
Against  this  usurpation  in  the  sphere  of  religious  authority  Luther 
lifted  the  standard  of  revolt,  demanding  with  all  the  urgency  and 
importunity  of  his  earnest  nature  and  forceful  leadership  that  the 
Bible  alone  should  henceforth  be  open  to  the  mind  and  heart  of 
^every  man.  It  was  through  his  influence  that  that  book  became 
popular,  and  an  established  authority  for  daily  life  in  a  sense 
that  was  neither  legalistic  nor  ascetic.  He  insisted  that  the  Bible 
was  perspicuous,  and  that  the  reader  can  for  himself  discover 
its  teachings  about  what  is  necessary  for  salvation ;  that  it  tells 
him  everything  that  it  is  essential  for  him  to  know  in  the  domain 
of   Scripture,  which   is  that  of  religion  and   redemption.     Men 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  Hi 

once  more  were  taught  that  which  had  long  been  obscured,  that  it 
was  to  the  Bible,  and  not  to  popes,  councils  and  a  graduated 
prelatical  system  that  men  were  to  look  for  all  necessary  informa- 
tion about  God,  Christ,  salvation  and  eternal  life.  By  means  of 
preaching,  which  for  hundreds  of  years  had  been  pushed  into  the 
background,  when  it  had  not  been  entirely  neglected,  the  Refor- 
mation, at  a  time  when  religion  had  become  external  and  legal,  re- 
opened these  sources  of  religious  life  and  from  those  sources 
streams  have  flowed  forth  from  that  day  to  ours. 

Along  with  the  restoration  of  the  Bible  to  its  rightful  place  in 
the  sphere  of  authority  came  the  demand  for  an  appreciation 
of  its  popular  exposition.  The  new  movement  had  something  to 
assert  and  expound  as  well  as  something  to  deny.  If  it  discarded 
one  interpretation  of  Christianity,  it  espoused  another.  Deeply 
rooted,  as  we  have  seen  it  to  be,  in  the  experience,  first  of  all,  of 
one  great  soul  and  in  subjective  impulses  and  convictions,  it 
owed  its  origin  to  the  direct  contact  of  the  mind  with  the  Scrip- 
tures. It  was  there  that  it  found  alike  its  source  and  its  regula- 
tive norm.  It  was  not  a  new  phase  of  merely  natural  religion, 
but  had  its  fountain  head  in  the  writings  of  prophets  and  apostles, 
those  holy  men  of  old  who  were  inspired  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
The  new  valuation  of  faith  as  the  essence  of  religion  it  was 
which  brought  this  about.  That  Word  the  new  phase  of  Chris- 
tian development  affirmed  to  be  God's  means  to  produce  faith,  and 
accordingly  that  must  be  preached  in  popular  form  and  faithfully 
explained. 

The  great  events  and  achievements  of  that  mighty  revolution 
were  largely  the  work  of  preachers  who  expounded  it  to  the 
popular  mind  and  heart,  and  in  the  language  of  the  people.  It 
was  by  means  of  the  Word  of  God  appealing  to  the  heart  through 
the  intelligence  of  earnest  men  who  believed,  loved  and  taught 
that  Word,  that  the  best  and  most  enduring  work  of  the  Reforma- 
tion was  done.  There  was  at  that  time  a  special  call  for  faith, 
a  demand  for  some  definite  appeal  to  conscience,  and  the  deepen- 
ing and  widening  of  the  knowledge  of  Christians.  The  means  de- 
pended upon  by  the  chief  of  the  reformers,  especially  for  the 
awakening  of  a  robust  faith  and  the  energy  of  Christian  activity, 
was  the  quickening  message  of  the  Gospel.  His  theory  of  that 
Word  of  life  and  salvation,  his  profound  confidence  in  its  power, 
mightily  reacted  upon  preaching,  giving  it  at  once  a  new  spirit, 


224         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

new  potency  and  new  forms.  The  relation  between  the  Reforma- 
tion and  preaching,  increasingly  insisted  upon  in  Christian  as- 
semblies for  worship,  in  contrast  with  the  celebration  of  the 
mass,  which  had  hitherto  occupied  the  chief  place  in  worship,  may 
be  adequately  described  as  one  of  mutual  dependence,  aid  and 
guidance.  Because  of  what  the  Bible  was  in  itself,  and  the 
primacy  of  the  place  assigned  it,  a  distinctly  new  epoch  in  the 
history  of  the  pulpit  and  its  triumphs  meets  us  now,  the  greatest 
and  most  fruitful  epoch  since  the  fourth  century,  the  period  of 
John  Chrysostom  "of  the  golden  mouth,"  and  the  great  Cappa- 
docian  preachers,  Basil  the  Great,  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  his  brother, 
and  Gregory  Nazianzen,  his  chosen  friend.  "The  age  of  the 
Reformation,"  says  Christlieb,  "makes  the  deepest  cleft,  the  sharp- 
est turning  point,  in  the  historical  development  of  Christian 
preaching,  as  to  contents  and  form,  spirit  and  character."  It  is 
true  that  the  reformers  used  other  means  to  promote  the  good 
work  that  is  historically  identified  with  their  names.  In  fact, 
every  legitimate  means  of  advancing  their  cause,  such  as  the  use 
of  the  press,  and  of  correspondence,  both  private  and  public, 
teaching,  personal  influence,  discussion  and  debate,  seem  to  have 
been  used,  but  none  the  less,  it  remains  true  that  the  chief  instru- 
ment in  their  hands,  and  diligently  used,  was  the  preaching  of 
the  divinely  inspired  word  of  God,  the  one  and  only  decisive 
judge  and  standard. 

In  that  men  were  once  more  to  find  the  only  source  of  the 
saving  doctrine.  In  such  matters  no  one  is  to  speak  with  author- 
ity save  God  only,  and  when  He  speaks  through  His  Word  that, 
and  that  alone,  is  the  truth  not  to  be  added  to  nor  subtracted 
from  by  the  pope,  the  councils,  or  any  other  organization,  and 
not  to  be  supplemented  by  decrees,  traditions,  or  citations  from 
apostolic  or  post-apostolic  fathers.  In  Luther's  view,  especially, 
it  was  an  unalterable  divine  ordination  that  spiritual  life  and  sal- 
vation, and  the  faith  which  lays  hold  upon  them,  are  bound  up 
with  the  use  of  the  Word  of  God  and  of  the  Sacraments,  as  de- 
riving all  their  efficacy  from  that  Word,  and  instituted  by  the 
Head  of  the  Church  Himself. 

Viewed  from  any  standpoint,  the  Reformation  was  a  revival 
of  that  which  was  distinctively  biblical  in  Christianity.  "To  the 
law  and  to  the  testimony"  was  its  constant  appeal.  Scripture, 
said  the  great  leader  of  the  new  movement,  is  our  one  authentic 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  225 

and  trustworthy  source  of  the  knowledge  of  the  revelation  of  God 
in  Christ ;  and  he  had  the  best  grounds  for  refusing  to  admit 
the  co-ordinate,  not  to  say  superior,  authority  of  an  alleged  apos- 
tolic tradition,  whose  original  scope  was  unknown,  which  had 
been  exposed  to  the  changing  influences  of  the  passing  centuries 
of  papal  history,  and  which,  especially  in  later  periods,  he  well 
knew  not  to  have  been  honestly  administered.  The  Church  of 
Rome  had  dethroned  the  Word  of  God  from  its  supremacy,  and 
virtually  withheld  the  vernacular  Bible  from  Christendom.  The 
teaching  of  the  hierarchy  was  supposed  to  mean  that  it  is  the 
authority  of  the  Church  which  gives  the  Bible  the  value  of  the 
Word  of  God,  the  position  being  emphatically  maintained  that 
the  Church  itself  derives  its  authority  from  God  alone.  It  had 
been  overlooked  that  the  Bible  is  the  Word  of  God  because,  as  it 
stands,  it  is  God's  supreme  gift,  and  is  perfectly  suited  for  the 
doing  of  the  work  to  which  it  had  been  divinely  designed  in  the 
economy  of  salvation.  It  was  the  primary  work  of  the  Reforma- 
tion to  restore  the  Word  of  God,  in  contrast  to  such  erroneous 
teaching,  to  its  rightful  position,  to  reinstate  it  as  the  formal  prin- 
ciple of  Christianity,  to  make  it  once  more  the  determinative  fac- 
tor in  the  Church's  doctrine,  in  the  regulation  of  her  practice,  in 
the  teaching  of  her  ministry  and  in  the  homes  of  her  people. 
This  objective  principle,  made  so  prominent  in  the  period  of  the 
Reformation,  once  more  gave  to  the  Bible  its  supremacy  over 
ecclesiastical  tradition  as  a  co-ordinate  rule  of  faith,  remanded 
to  its  rightful  place  the  teaching  of  the  Church  as  subordinate 
to  the  Word  of  God,  and  once  more  gave  to  men  the  inspired  his- 
tory of  redemption,  the  inspired  source  of  religious  truth,  and 
the  inspired  standard  and  test  of  such  truth,  reviving  once  more 
the  idea  that  men  can  get  from  the  Bible  not  only  information 
about  God,  but  fellowship  with  God ;  not  merely  knowledge 
about  religion,  but  communion  with  the  Highest ;  not  only  new 
truth  about  divine  things,  but  an  actual  quickening  of  the  divine 
life  in  man. 

That  movement  went  forward  on  the  assumption  that  it  was 
inconceivable  that  God,  who  dwelleth  in  perfect  light,  and  in 
whom  is  no  darkness  at  all,  should  have  doomed  the  soul  of  man 
to  the  dreary  prospect  of  endless  doubt  and  uncertainty  growing 
out  of  a  disputable  standard  of  authority  in  religion.  It  affirmed 
that  however  men  may  differ  respecting  the   teachings   of  the 


226         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

Scriptures,  there  can  be  no  dispute  about  this,  that  the  soul  was 
created  to  know  the  truth  and  as  finding  enduring  peace  and 
satisfaction  in  that  knowledge.  Up  to  the  time  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, in  the  long  course  of  papal  development,  the  voice  of  the 
Church  had  been  regarded  as  final  in  all  matters  of  belief,  and 
a  practical  infallibility,  even  in  advance  of  the  famous  Vatican 
Council's  decree  of  1870,  had  been  attributed  to  its  decisions. 
When  the  Church  principle  about  that  authority  began  to  be 
questioned,  and  was  finally  set  aside,  it  became  necessary  to 
reinstate  another  source  of  authority,  to  which  all  men  alike 
could  go  in  search  of  that  absolute  truth  which  God  had  com- 
municated to  men. 

Luther's  revolt  was  against  a  Church  which  had  intrenched 
itself  behind  the  arrogant  assumption  that  the  Bible  was  only  a 
"deposit"  in  the  hands  of  the  episcopally  constituted  hierarchy, 
and  that  to  it  alone  belonged  the  right  of  determining  what  was 
the  meaning  of  the  revelation  given  in  the  Bible.  He  made  the 
first  emphatic  protest  against  the  appeal  of  Irenasus  to  tradition, 
the  priority  of  which  was  guaranteed  by  the  episcopate,  and 
against  the  claim  of  Augustine  regarding  the  divine  prerogatives 
of  the  episcopate  to  teach  infallible  truth.  He  stood  in  a  majesty 
unsurpassed,  confronting  the  world  which  had  been  and  that 
which  was  to  be.  It  made  no  difference  that  he  stood  alone, 
opposed  by  all  the  revered  traditions  of  Latin  Christianity — 
traditions  that  ran  so  far  back  that  they  seemed  almost  to  be 
coeval  with  Christianity  itself.  He  stood  there  alone  before  his 
age  with  an  uplifted  Bible,  and  the  truth  which  he  read  therein 
so  corresponded  with  his  inner  experience  that  it  made  no  dif- 
ference, as  he  said,  though  a  thousand  Augustines,  or  a  thousand 
Cyprians,  or  a  thousand  councils  were  against  him. 

All  genuine  Protestantism,  from  the  very  beginning,  not  only 
respected  tradition,  but  also  affirmed  that  creeds  are  to  be  re- 
ceived because  they  have  the  warrant  of  Holy  Scripture,  and  not 
because  they  are  given  on  the  authority  of  the  Church.  Luther's 
perpetual  challenge  was  this:  "If  you  will  not  refute  me  by  the 
Word  of  God,  here  I  stand,"  while  Calvin's  supreme  and  solemn 
answer,  when  he  was  preaching,  lecturing,  journeying  and  formu- 
lating a  theological  system  and  making  catechisms,  when  disease 
was  disputing  his  life  at  every  inch,  was  in  the  words  with 
which  he  uniformly  closed  his  addresses  and  sermons:    "If  God's 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  227 

Word  be  on  our  side,  who  can  be  against  us?"  It  was  in  the 
constant  reiteration  of  this  truth  in  the  controversies  of  the  times 
that  this  distinctive  and  fundamental  principle  of  Protestantism, 
the  formal  principle  of  the  Reformation,  was  reached,  and  the 
traditional  belief  in  the  authority  of  the  Roman  Church  over- 
thrown for  large  sections  of  western  Christendom. 

In  our  day,  in  much  of  the  critical  and  theological  discussion, 
we  need  a  return  to  the  safe  and  sound  principle  of  the  place 
and  doctrine  of  the  Scriptures  maintained  in  the  time  of  the 
Reformation.  In  the  somewhat  specious  use  of  the  term,  "the 
Christian  consciousness,"  there  have  grown  up  some  serious  de- 
partures from  that  proper  co-ordination  of  Word  and  experi- 
ence meant  by  Luther  whenever  he  talked  about  the  self -evidenc- 
ing power  of  divine  truth.  The  danger  in  the  use  of  the  term 
"Christian  consciousness"  lies  in  the  way  of  introducing  into  it, 
or  imposing  upon  it,  one's  own  conception  of  what  the  term  ought 
to  contain,  the  latter  becoming  elastic,  even  almost  pliant,  beneath 
the  touch  of  the  interpreter.  "The  Christian  consciousness,"  says 
the  late  Professor  Stearns,  whose  early  death  caused  wide-spread 
sorrow  in  theological  circles,  "has  its  importance  and  its  inalien- 
able rights.  But  whether  it  be  the  consciousness  of  the  individual 
or  the  collective  consciousness  of  the  Church,  it  is  human  and 
subject  to  error,  and  it  must  be  measured  and  judged  by  the 
standard  of  the  Bible."  Good  men,  even,  can  lay  no  rightful 
claim  to  an  illumination  such  as  the  supernatural  inspiration  of 
the  Lord's  apostles,  and  the  entire  history  of  the  Church  has 
made  it  plain  that  to  trust  to  any  inner  illumination  or  "Christian 
consciousness,"  or  "experience,"  or  any  other  merely  subjective 
test  of  Christian  truth,  has  ended  in  a  reaction  to  unbelief,  in 
fanaticism  or  ecclesiastical  anarchy.  There  can  be  no  Christian 
consciousness  of  which  the  Scriptures  have  not  been,  through  the 
influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  sent  into  the  world  to  teach  and  lead 
men,  the  source  and  rule.  It  is  only  by  means  of  the  Word  of 
the  living  God  that  we  are  able  to  attain  to  that  consciousness  and 
correctly  understand  and  interpret  it.  A  fine  statement  of  the 
evangelical  position  on  this  subject  has  been  given  by  the  late  Dr. 
Charles  Hodge,  the  great  Princeton  theologian.  "There  is,"  says 
he,  "a  norm  of  conviction  more  intimate  and  irresistible  than 
that  which  arises  from  the  inward  teaching  of  the  Spirit.  All 
saving  faith  rests  on  His  testimony  or  demonstrations    (1   Cor. 


228         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

11:4).  This  inward  teaching  produces  a  conviction  which  no 
sophistries  can  obscure  and  no  arguments  can  shake.  It  is 
founded  on  consciousness,  and  you  might  as  well  argue  a  man 
out  of  belief  in  his  existence  as  out  of  confidence  that  what  he 
is  thus  taught  of  God  is  true.  Two  things,  however,  are  always 
to  be  borne  in  mind.  First,  that  this  inward  teaching  or  demon- 
stration of  the  Spirit  is  confined  to  truths  objectively  revealed  in 
the  Scriptures.  *  *  *  And,  second,  this  experience  is  de- 
picted in  the  Word  of  God.  The  Bible  gives  us,  not  only  the 
facts  concerning  God  and  Christ,  ourselves  and  our  relations  to 
our  Maker  and  Redeemer,  but  also  records  the  legitimate  effects 
of  those  truths  on  the  minds  of  believers." 

A  better  and  more  satisfying  statement  is  that  given  by  one  of 
the  best  accredited  theological  and  historical  scholars  of  this  coun- 
try now  living.  Dr.  Henry  E.  Jacobs.  Speaking  of  Christian  ex- 
perience, Dr.  Jacobs  says  that  while  it  is  "an  important  element  in 
the  interpretation  of  doctrines,  in  so  far  as  it  declares  the  presence 
and  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  applying  God's  Word,  it  must 
constantly  be  tested  and  adjusted  by  the  Holy  Scripture.  The 
spiritual  sense  of  believing  men  is  not  to  be  depreciated  (1  Cor. 
2:15,  He  that  is  spiritual  judgeth  all  things),  nevertheless  it  is 
always  to  be  recognized  by  its  complete  subjection  to  Holy 
Scripture  (1  John  4:1-2;  Gal.  1:8;  Acts  17:11).  A  true  and 
normal  faith  is  one  that  holds  implicitly  and  exclusively  to  the 
revelation  of  God  contained  in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  It  is  a 
faith  that  lives  in  communion  with  Christ,  but  Christ  in  the 
heart  of  the  believer  and  Christ  in  His  Word  are  always  one 
and  the  same." 

If  such  statements  as  these  of  Drs.  Hodge,  Jacobs,  Stearns 
and  a  multitude  of  others  that  might  be  cited,  are  true  and  cor- 
rect reflections  of  the  Reformation  principle  of  the  relation  that 
must  be  maintained  between  Word  and  experience,  then  the 
"Christian  consciousness,"  which  Dr.  Francis  L.  Patton  has  de- 
nominated as  "that  compound  of  Hegel  and  Schleiermacher," 
must  be  looked  upon  as  the  importation  into  the  religious  thought 
of  our  country  of  a  dubious  and  discredited  source  of  authority 
in  religion — the  exaltation  to  an  unwarranted  and  dangerous 
place  in  many  of  our  schools  and  churches  of  a  truth  over- 
emphasized by  Schleiermacher.  the  great  German  scholar  and 
thinker,  the  man  who  opened  up  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  re- 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  229 

ligious  thinking.  He  did  not  invent  the  ''Christian  conscious- 
ness," but  in  calling  renewed  attention  to  its  existence  and  im- 
portance, came  to  look  upon  it  as  an  independent  source  of 
theology,  making  it  the  task  of  systematic  theology  to  reduce  its 
contents  to  order  and  unity,  without  regard  to  the  Scriptures,  and 
with  the  result  of  producing  a  merely  subjective  theology,  based 
on  pious  feelings,  in  many  respects,  particularly  in  its  later  de- 
velopment, not  only  defective  but  arbitrary.  In  recent  years, 
especially  since  the  introduction  and  wide  acceptance  in  some 
churches  and  schools  of  this  theory,  its  inadequacy  and  danger- 
ous features  have  been  shown  to  be  many. 

True  Protestantism,  from  its  beginnings  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, has  welcomed  criticism  of  a  serious  character,  believing 
that  such  criticism  must  ultimately  help  to  a  better  understanding 
of  the  Divine  Word.  It  asks  no  franking  privileges,  and  shrinks 
from  no  fair  and  legitimate  use  of  critical  apparatus.  From  its 
opening  controversies  on,  it  has  not  assumed  to  be  true  because 
it  has  been  an  unquestionably  useful  factor  in  both  evangeliza- 
tion and  civilization.  It  expects  to  prove  its  claims,  and  chal- 
lenges the  candid  and  honest  critical  investigation  of  its  Scrip- 
tures, in  which  men  have  found  the  revelation  of  that  "faith 
once  for  all  delivered  to  the  saints." 

There  is  but  one  frontier  which  it  sets  up,  beyond  which 
professed  Christian  men  should  not  even  want  to  pass  in  the 
use  of  critical  methods.  That  frontier  is  this,  that  the  critical 
spirit  shall  not  be  allowed  to  falsify  what  has  already  been  veri- 
fied in  human  experience ;  that  it  shall  not  start  with  the  assump- 
tion, as  so  many  destructive  critics  of  our  day  do,  that  the  super- 
natural in  our  religion  is  to  be  at  once  disallowed  because  it  can- 
not be  a  matter  of  knowledge.  This  was  the  quiet  assumption 
of  that  school  of  German  criticism  of  the  New  Testament  which, 
forced  back  from  position  to  position  upon  the  very  person  of 
our  Lord,  and  more  and  more  hemmed  in  after  the  death  of  its 
Master,  was  outwardly  broken,  which  since  has  fallen  to  pieces 
and  now  exists  no  more,  not  even  at  Tubingen,  the  once  powerful 
seat  of  its  vaunting  assumptions.  True  and  permanently  valu- 
able criticism  will  never  dissociate  itself  from  that  Reformation 
principle  of  the  experience  of  good  men  of  that  divine  mercy 
coming  through  the  application  of  the  written  Word.  In  this 
always   lies   the   one    final    and   complete   refutation   of   the   un- 


230         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

scientific  assumption  of  Baur  and  his  school.  It  is  this  that 
guarantees  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  truth.  "Only  the  man," 
says  Professor  Stearns  in  his  strong  work  entitled  "The  Evi- 
dence of  Christian  Experience,"  "only  the  man  who  comes  to  the 
experience  of  the  Bible  and  its  phenomena  with  that  first-hand 
knowledge  of  the  truth  of  its  great  facts  and  doctrines  which 
comes  from  personal  experience  is  competent  to  enter  upon  these 
critical  and  historical  investigations,  and  likely  to  find  a  satis- 
factory solution  of  them.  What  we  complain  of  is  that  these  in- 
vestigations have  been  so  largely  carried  on  by  men  who  have 
distinctly  repudiated  the  Christian  experience,  and  have  come  to 
the  subject  with  naturalistic  presuppositions.  And  still  more 
do  we  complain  that  Christian  scholars  often  allow  themselves 
blindly  to  follow  such  men  when  their  own  standpoint,  if  they 
could  only  understand  it,  is  altogether  different.  When,  how- 
ever, the  evidence  of  Christian  experience  has  been  given  its 
proper  place,  the  way  is  opened  for  the  fullest  and  freest  investiga- 
tion of  the  historical  and  critical  questions  relating  to  the  Bible. 
It  is  not  the  Christian  who  has  the  witness  in  himself  and  knows 
what  he  believes,  who  is  timid  about  subjecting  the  Bible  to  the 
tests  of  criticism.  Such  a  Christian  has  no  fear  that  the  Bible 
will  suffer  by  dealing  thus  with  it,  but  is  convinced  that  what- 
ever new  facts  may  be  discovered  concerning  it  will  only  serve 
to  bring  out  more  fully  the  divine  claim  of  the  precious  Book 
to  truth  and  authority." 

The  test  in  this  matter  is  the  absence  of  hypotheses  and  pre- 
sumptions that  are  destructive  to  revelation  and  antagonistic  to 
spiritual  religion.  For  us,  as  for  Luther,  the  great  original  cer- 
tainty which  attests  all  religious  truth  is  not  the  authority  of  the 
Church,  nor  that  located  in  the  processes  of  the  human  reason, 
but  that  Word  of  God  which,  however  different  may  be  its  forms 
of  expression,  is  able  to  attest  itself  to  the  hearts  of  men  as  the 
veritable  Word  of  God  by  itself  and  its  divine  power.  The 
Romanist  has  alleged  that  Protestants  put  a  book  between  the  soul 
and  God,  but  this  they  forget,  that  the  book  is  so  written,  explain 
it  how  you  will,  that  those  who  read  it  devoutly  forget  the  book 
and  are  brought  to  rejoice  in  the  vision  of  God.  In  fulfillment 
of  His  promise  His  spirit  guided  the  apostles,  not  only  in  preach- 
ing the  Gospel  to  the  people  of  the  time,  but  in  putting  on  record 
all  that  was  necessary  for  the  guidance  of  the  Church   in  the 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  231 

ages  to  come.  These  records  of  apostolic  doctrine  have  been,  in 
the  providence  of  God,  marvelously  preserved,  and  if,  availing 
ourselves  of  all  helps  toward  the  understanding  of  the  Scriptures, 
we  ultimately  rely  on  the  Spirit  Who  guided  the  apostles  into 
the  truth  in  their  teaching,  we  shall  be  guided  into  truth  in  the 
understanding  of  what  they  teach,  and  be  led  into  the  experience 
of  the  wisdom  and  power  of  God  unto  salvation. 

Whenever  the  impression  prevails  that  the  truth  of  God's  Word 
is  problematical,  that  it  deals  with  mere  pious  opinions  rather 
than  with  vitalizing  Christian  doctrines  and  facts,  it  is  no  longer 
the  Word  of  a  King  that  has  power,  and  its  magisterial  note  of 
authority  has  been  silenced.  No  matter  how  carefully  the  mod- 
ern critical  inquest  may  be  guarded,  if  once  the  anti-supernatural 
hypotheses  are  granted  standing  room,  and  myth  is  introduced  in 
order  to  explain  miracle ;  if  the  withholding  of  faith  in  the  Word 
as  supreme  is  to  be  justified  by  an  appeal  to  philosophical  or 
philological  reasons,  then  the  gates  are  open  to  unbelief,  the 
idolatry  of  reason  and  scholastic  criticism,  and  then  cometh  the 
deluge.  If  hypotheses  that  have  been  affirmed  in  the  name  of  the 
"accepted  results"  of  alleged  scholarship,  that  the  Psalter  is 
simply  a  monument  of  the  church  consciousness  during  the  cen- 
turies immediately  preceding  Christ ;  that  Job  and  Jonah  are 
only  similitudes  of  the  people  of  Israel ;  that  the  name  of  Samuel 
is  enigmatical,  and  that  the  book  which  bears  his  name  is  un- 
doubtedly of  Maccabean  origin  and  contains  no  Messianic  traces ; 
that  Ecclesiastes  is  nothing  but  a  record  of  doubts  and  unbelief 
rather  than  pious  faith,  and  marked  by  cold,  skeptical  philosophy 
and  tempered  with  pessimism  ;  that  the  pathetic  fifty-third  chapter 
of  Isaiah  is  nothing  more  than  a  prophetical  dirge  of  Jeremiah 
used  for  Christian  purposes ;  that  the  prayer  of  Solomon  (2 
Chron.  6 )  is  a  literary  fiction ;  that  the  song  of  Hannah  is  the 
work  of  some  unknown  redactor ;  that  the  story  of  Joshua  is 
due  to  a  misunderstanding — if  such  revoluntiary  hypotheses  are 
maintainable,  can  we  any  longer  predicate  the  supreme  authority 
of  the  Bible,  or  any  longer  revert  with  confidence  to  the  Reforma- 
tion principle  of  the  Word  of  God  as  the  means  of  grace,  effica- 
cious for  life  and  salvation?  Certain  it  is  that  no  heresy  ever  yet 
became  orthodoxy  which  has  dealt  with  the  Scriptures  after  this 
fashion.  Principal  Fairbairn  has  given  expression  to  the  singular 
and  striking  harmony  in  all  the   factors  entering  into  the  dis- 


232         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

cussion  of  this  phase  of  our  subject.  In  his  great  book,  "The 
Place  of  Christ  in  Modern  Theology,"  he  says:  "Without  God 
the  Church  has  no  head  and  no  end,  the  Word  no  truth  and  no 
function,  the  reason  no  goal  to  reach  and  no  object  to  revere; 
without  the  Church  the  Word  has  no  medium  to  live  in ;  without 
the  Word  the  Church  has  no  truth  to  live  by."  It  is  certainly 
the  business  of  the  Church  to  keep  in  active  touch  with  approved 
results  of  modern  critical  methods.  It  is  not,  however,  called 
upon  to  retreat  before  unproved  and  audacious  hypotheses  de- 
structive at  once  to  both  real  scholarship  and  faith.  No  Chris- 
tian may  despise  true  science,  for  it  is  the  gift  of  God,  but  not 
everything  is  true  science  and  culture  which  have  been  arrogantly 
claimed  for  both.  The  Church  is  not  called  upon  to  shun  legiti- 
mate criticism  that  is  both  veracious  and  candid,  but  it  is  to  be 
watchful  lest  some  sophisticated  Barabbas  be  thrust  upon  it 
instead  of  the  Lord  from  glory. 

VII 

Under  whatever  varieties  of  form  it  has  appeared  during  its 
history  of  four  hundred  years,  and  notwithstanding  the  variety  of 
opinion  that  has  maintained  among  its  leaders,  all  true  Protestant- 
ism has  been  distinguished  as  a  system  of  belief  by  two  primary 
principles.  These  are  the  one  just  discussed,  the  exclusive 
authority  of  the  Scriptures,  and  the  other,  justification  by  faith 
alone.  Immanuel  Kant,  the  great  German  philosopher,  once  said 
that  it  was  the  business  of  philosophy  to  answer  three  questions: 
(1)  "What  may  I  know?"  (2)  "What  ought  I  to  do?"  and  (3) 
''For  what  may  I  hope?"  Attempts  of  philosophy  to  answer 
these  questions  summarize  all  that  the  world  has  done  on  that 
subject  from  Plato  to  Herbert  Spencer,  Bergson  and  Eucken. 
But  these  questions  of  the  philosopher  are  all  anticipated  and 
stated  with  equal  clearness  thousands  of  years  before  Kant  had 
made  Koenigsberg,  where  he  passed  his  life,  famous.  In  one  of. 
the  oldest  books  in  the  canon  of  the  sacred  Scriptures,  the  book 
which  Carlyle  called  the  grandest  book  ever  written  by  man,  Job 
cries  out  (1)  "Oh,  that  I  knew  where  I  might  find  him";  (2) 
"How  shall  a  man  be  just  or  right  before  God?"  and  (3)  "If  a 
man  die  shall  he  live  again?"  The  philosopher's  questions  are 
but  echoes  of  those  of  the  patriarch,  the  man  of  Uz,  "who  was 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  233 

perfect  and  upright,  one  that  feared  God  and  eschewed  evil." 
One  of  these  questions  pertains  to  salvation,  the  restoration  of 
man  to  rightful  relations  with  God — the  principle  round  which 
the  Protestant  discussions  revolved,  and  out  of  which  they  orig- 
inally sprang.  The  Augsburg  Confession,  the  mother  confession 
of  Protestantism,  deals  in  the  second  article  already  with  the  sad 
fact,  which  a  bitter  experience  had  forced  upon  the  reformers,  l 
and  which  had  been  fully  established  by  the  experience  of  the 
Church  at  large,  of  the  impotence  of  human  nature  in  spiritual 
things  and  of  its  consequent  inability  to  obtain  forgiveness,  peace 
or  holiness  by  means  of  its  own  efforts  or  sacrifices.  It  was  the 
work,  especially  of  Luther,  to  lead  men  back  once  more  to  the 
real  remedy  for  this  bankruptcy  of  human  powers  and  to  reaffir- 
mation of  the  true  grounds  of  reconciliation  with  God.  The 
Lutheran  theology,  says  Principal  Fairbairn,  "is  essentially  a  soteri- 
ology,  a  science  of  the  Redeemer's  person  and  work,  profoundly 
conscious  of  man's  sin  and  the  grace  by  which  he  is  saved."  The 
controversy  waged  by  the  reformers  with  the  papal  hierarchy  did 
not  so  much  relate  to  those  branches  of  theology  on  which  the 
ancient  councils  of  the  Church  have  spoken.  The  Apostles'  Creed, 
together  with  those  of  Nicea,  of  325  A.  D.,  and  of  Chalcedon,  of 
451  A.  D.,  were  accepted  by  both  Romanists  and  Protestants.  In 
respect  to  the  Trinity  and  the  deity  of  our  Lord  both  parties 
stood  on  common  ground.  On  the  subject  of  anthropology,  or 
what  is  designated  by  that  word,  the  doctrine  of  sin,  the  reformers 
went  back  to  Paul  and  Augustine,  while  the  Romanists  were  less 
hostile  to  the  modifications  of  the  British  monk  Pelagius.  But  it 
was  in  their  profound  sense  of  sin  and  its  dominion  over  the 
human  will,  of  man's  natural  inability  to  come  into  rightful  re- 
lations with  God,  that  the  real  issue  at  once  came  to  be  made 
and  the  basis  of  a  truly  Protestant  theology  was  laid.  The  real 
point  of  difference  between  the  two  parties,  the  one  around  which 
all  others  very  soon  ranged  themselves,  was  the  vital  question  as 
to  how  the  soul,  burdened  with  self-condemnation,  is  to  obtain 
the  forgiveness  of  sins  and  be  brought  back  into  peaceful  reunion 
with  God  in  the  character  of  a  reconciled  father  as  contrasted 
with  the  aspect  of  a  stern  and  implacable  judge  and  lawgiver. 

A  profound  regulative  principle  was  found  by  Luther  in  his    J 
study  of  the  Scriptures,  and  especially  in  his  personal  experience 
of  the  truth.     It  has  been  termed   in   Protestant  theology  the 


234         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

"material  principle"  of  the  Reformation;  the  principle  that  sin- 
ful man  is  justified  before  God  out  of  pure  grace  for  Christ's 
sake  through  faith.  In  the  teachings,  injunctions,  services  and 
ceremonies  of  the  Church,  he  had  sought  for  this  good  in  vain. 
He  found  it  in  the  doctrine  of  gratuitous  pardon,  a  pardon  that 
waits  for  nothing  but  acceptance  on  the  part  of  the  soul — the 
belief,  the  trust,  the  faith  of  the  penitent.  The  Church  had  been 
teaching  for  centuries  that  faith  and  good  works  are  co-ordinate 
sources  of  justification,  and  then  laid  the  chief  stress  on  good 
works.  That  Luther  came  to  deny,  claiming  upon  the  basis  of 
both  Scripture  teaching  and  experience  that  we  are  justified  by 
faith  alone,  meaning  by  this  that  the  only  way  the  sinner  can 
obtain  salvation  is  through  the  grace  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus. 
Everything  of  the  nature  of  merit  or  satisfaction  on  the  part 
of  the  offender  is  precluded  by  the  utterly  gratuitous  nature  of 
the  gift,  by  the  sufficiency  of  the  Redeemer's  expiation.  Every 
claim  that  works  for  merit  on  the  side  of  the  offender  as  the 
ground  of  forgiveness  was  looked  upon  as  a  disparagement  of 
the  Redeemer's  mercy  and  of  the  adequacy  of  His  expiatory 
office.  Man  cannot  merit  his  salvation,  for  Christ  has  done  that. 
All  the  sinner  can  do  is  to  accept  Christ.  He  is  saved,  as  St. 
Paul  has  declared,  "by  grace  alone,  lest  any  man  should  boast." 
In  order  to  be  saved  he  must  appropriate  this  grace  of  Christ,  and 
this  he  does  through  faith.  Just  as  soon  as  he  believes  in  Christ 
he  is  justified;  that  is,  he  is  released  from  the  guilt  of  sin.  This 
is  justification  by  faith,  which  Luther,  recalling  what  he  himself 
had  experienced,  declared  to  be  "the  article  of  a  standing  or  fall- 
ing Church."  Faith  thus  laying  hold  of  a  free  pardon  and  re- 
uniting the  soul  with  God,  becomes  the  fountain  of  a  new  life  of 
holiness,  a  holiness  which  is  produced  not  out  of  fear  and  homage 
to  law,  but  which  springs  from  gratitude  and  filial  sentiments.  To 
justify  signifies,  not  to  make  a  man  righteous  but  to  treat  him  as 
though  he  were  righteous,  to  deliver  him  from  the  accusation  of 
the  law  by  the  bestowal  of  a  pardon  which  is  not  to  be  regarded 
as  in  any  sense  an  achievement,  but  as  a  bestowment.  Faith  is 
not  some  meritorious  work  to  be  rewarded,  but  something  that 
apprehends  the  good  and  unmerited  gift  of  God — the  hand  that 
is  stretched  out  to  take  that  which  is  freely  bestowed.  This  is 
justification  by  faith,  which  at  once  became  the  great  central  doc- 
trine of  the  Lutheran  movement.     It  was  the  cardinal  principle 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  235 

of  the  new  interpretation  of  the  Gospel.  It  soon  came  to  be 
looked  upon  as  the  substance  of  the  Christian  religion.  It  placed 
the  center  of  the  Christian  life  in  the  experience  of  forgiveness, 
out  of  which  the  evidences  of  Christian  character  and  victories 
over  temptation  were  to  grow  as  legitimate  and  expected  fruits. 
Thus  the  Reformation  did  not  take  its  start  so  much  in  Luther's 
head  as  in  his  heart.  To  him  the  greatest  of  all  questions  was 
what  must  I  do  to  be  saved?  How  can  I  obtain  forgiveness  of 
sins  and  become  just  before  God?  He  had  been  told,  as  we  have 
seen,  that  the  way  to  insure  his  salvation  was  by  the  way  of  obe- 
dience to  the  commandments  of  the  Church  and  by  securing  the 
intercession  of  the  saints.  In  his  efforts  along  this  proscribed 
and  burdensome  line  he  had  tried  until  amost  driven  to  despair  in 
his  efforts  to  appease  an  angry  God  and  make  amends  for  his  sins. 
Not  until  he  had  grasped  this  great  central  truth  of  the  Gospel, 
"the  just  shall  live  by  faith,"  did  the  troubled  conscience  of  the 
great  man  find  rest,  and  no  sooner  did  this  blessed  truth  shine 
upon  his  soul  than  he  began  to  preach  and  confess  it  before  others. 
It  at  once  became  the  heart  of  all  his  teaching  and  preaching, 
the  burden  of  all  his  sermons,  the  silver  thread  that  ran  through 
all  his  writings,  the  dominating  force  of  the  renewed  life  of  the 
Church.  It  was  not  by  an  accident  nor  by  an  ecclesiastical  de- 
cree that  this  doctrine  became  the  regulative  principle  of  Luth- 
eran theology.  Not  only  was  it  taught  in  the  New  Testament 
in  unmistakable  prominence,  but  it  had  been  wrought  out  in  the 
unusual  experience  of  the  greatest  of  the  reformers.  He  had 
diligently  sought  assurance  of  salvation  by  acts  of  penance,  by 
the  deeds  of  the  law,  and  by  works  of  imposed  righteousness. 
But  all  his  efforts  had  proven  vain.  Being  too  earnest  and  sin- 
cere to  be  satisfied  with  mere  outward  works,  he  craved  for  an 
inner  assurance  which  could  only  be  wrought  through  faith  in 
Christ.  This  assurance  was  given  him  when  he  clearly  recog- 
nized the  great  truth  that  "the  just  shall  live  by  faith,"  that 
Christ  had  wrought  a  perfect  righteousness  for  man,  and  made 
complete  atonement  for  sin;  therefore,  only  by  accepting  Christ 
and  His  merit  could  inner  certainty  be  obtained.  Thus  it  has 
come  about  that  all  the  credal  statements  of  genuinely  evangelical 
churches  continue  to  this  day  to  confess  that  Christ  is  true  God 
and  true  man  in  one  person,  who  is  "the  only  propitiator  and 
mediator  ordained  between  God  and  man,  the  only  Saviour,  the 


236         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

only  High  Priest  and  Advocate  before  God."  This  experience 
of  Luther  was  wrought  in  and  through  the  Word  of  God,  and, 
accordingly,  if  that  Word  is,  as  we  have  seen,  to  be  regarded  as 
the  "formal  principle"  of  the  Reformation  and  justification  by 
faith  the  "material  principle,"  we  can  see  how  the  two  are  so 
beautifully  co-ordinated  in  the  Lutheran  apprehension  of  the 
Gospel.  Organically  and  vitally  they  belong  together.  Without 
the  Bible  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  could  not  be 
known.  By  means  of  the  Scriptures  the  Holy  Spirit  brings  jus- 
tification and  salvation  into  human  experience.  The  objective 
truth  taught  in  the  Bible,  according  to  Lutheran  theology,  espe- 
cially, must  become  subjective  in  the  Christian  experience.  Thus 
are  the  Bible  and  the  doctrine  of  Christian  assurance  indissolubly 
bound  together.  In  times  of  legalistic  preaching  and  teaching, 
in  a  time  when  we  are  so  frequently  reminded,  in  a  revived 
Socinianism,  of  "salvation  by  character,"  the  Protestant  Churches 
need  to  be  constantly  called  to  reassert  and  proclaim  with  un- 
mistakable definiteness  and  without  any  ambiguity  their  great 
and  vital  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone  and  salvation  by 
grace  alone  without  the  deeds  of  the  law.  This  restoration  of 
rightful  relations  with  God  can  thus  only  be  effected  by  faith, 
just  as  it  is  rendered  impossible  by  unbelief.  This  is  the  bond 
which  connects  the  soul  with  Christ,  so  that  being  now  in  Christ 
Jesus  the  soul  is  partaker  of  the  virtue  of  all  that  Christ  has 
done,  and  heir  to  the  fulness  of  all  that  He  is.  He  that  refuses 
to  believe  remains  outside  of  Christ,  while  he  that  consents  to 
believe  is  in  Christ  Jesus  and  is  reconciled  to  God  the  Father. 
This  is  the  condition  of  salvation  according  to  the  Scriptures. 
From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  Evangel  of  God,  from  the 
call  of  Abraham  in  Genesis  to  the  last  invitation  of  the  Spirit 
recorded  in  the  Revelation  of  St.  John,  on  this  subject  the  divine 
testimony  is  clear  and  unmistakable. 

Jesus  Christ  was  to  Luther,  first  of  all,  not  as  he  was  to  the 
schoolmen,  the  second  person  of  the  Trinity,  but  the  Saviour 
from  sin.  He  had  come  to  look  at  Jesus  Christ  primarily  from 
the  standpoint  of  his  own  sin  and  needs.  What  he  needed  was 
not  what  he  had  done  or  what  he  could  do,  but  what  Christ  had 
done,  and  from  the  moment  he  apprehended  that  truth  the  Re- 
former's whole  horizon  changed.  Life  became  to  him  a  new  thing, 
and  he  understood  that  henceforth  his  chief  business  in  religion 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OE  THE  MOVEMENT  237 

was  to  accept  in  gratitude  the  grace  and  mercy  of  God,  and  not 
to  go  on  striving  in  penitential  exercises  to  work  out  his  own  sal- 
vation, thus  attempting  an  impossible  thing.  To  use  a  modern 
word  of  some  of  the  theologians,  Jesus  Christ  henceforth  had  for 
him  the  value  of  God  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself.  His 
grasp  of  this  great  truth  it  is  which  gives  such  an  abiding  value 
to  some  of  his  characteristic  words.  "To  know  Jesus,"  for  an 
example,  he  says,  "in  the  true  way  means  to  know  that  He  died 
for  us.  There  are  many  of  you  who  say  Christ  is  a  man  of  this 
kind ;  He  is  God's  son,  was  born  of  a  pure  virgin,  became  man. 
died,  rose  again  from  the  dead  and  so  forth ;  that  is  all  nothing. 
But  when  we  truly  say  that  He  is  Christ,  we  mean  that  He  was 
given  for  us  without  any  works  of  ours ;  that  without  any  merits 
of  ours  He  has  won  for  us  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  has  made  us 
Children  of  God,  so  that  we  might  have  a  gracious  God,  might 
with  Him  become  lords  over  all  things  in  heaven  and  on  earth, 
and  besides,  might  have  eternal  life  through  Christ — that  is  faith, 
and  that  is  true  knowledge  of  Christ." 

In  the  consideration  of  this  principle  of  the  Reformation,  it  is 
not  to  be  affirmed  that  the  Church  of  Rome  did  not  assign  to  faith 
a  large  share  in  bringing  men  back  into  a  right  attitude  toward 
God.  But  this  faith  consisted  in  man's  assent  to  certain  proposi- 
tions concerning  divine  things  stated  authoritatively  by  the 
Church,  and  being  a  part  of  divine  grace,  this  faith  is  communi- 
cated to  man  exclusively  through  the  channels  of  the  seven 
Romish  sacraments,  the  absolute  control  of  which  is  in  the  hands 
of  the  priesthood.  Rome  did  not  deny  access  to  God,  but  did  in 
Luther's  day,  and  does  yet,  make  that  access  indirect.  It  holds 
with  us  that  God  is  in  Christ,  but  it  makes  the  priest  a  necessary 
mediator  between  the  soul  and  Christ.  Unlike  the  Protestant 
pastor  and  preacher  who  stands  in  his  place  pointing  the  soul  to 
Christ  to  hear  His  word,  the  priest  professes  to  act  in  behalf  of 
Christ,  receiving  confession  and  pronouncing  absolution,  the  error 
of  it  all  being  continually  aggravated  by  the  multiplication  of  in- 
termediaries and  intercessors,  and  by  the  imposition  of  rites  and 
ceremonies  as  means  of  obtaining  salvation.  According  to  the 
teaching  of  Romanism,  salvation  was  something  restricted  to  the 
members  of  a  certain  closed  corporation ;  that,  except  in  certain 
very  special  cases,  the  blessing  of  being  right  before  God  was 
confined  to  the  members  of  the  visible  Church,  of  which  the  pope 


238         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

was  the  one  and  only  official  head.  Thus  a  man's  relation  to 
Christ  was  determined  by  his  relation  to  the  Church,  and  the 
chief  matter  of  concern  came  to  be  obedience  in  the  use  of  the 
prescribed  steps  for  becoming  a  full  and  duly  certified  member  of 
the  corporation  in  which  certain  men,  set  apart  by  the  sacrament 
of  ordination,  were  authorized  to  declare  officially  that  the  se- 
curity of  the  salvation  they  have  to  offer  is  guaranteed  by  their 
own  sacerdotal  word.  The  Church  held  that  salvation  was  de- 
pendent upon  the  obedient  accomplishment  of  a  certain  routine 
of  outward  acts,  the  meeting  at  certain  prescribed  times  and 
places  of  certain  enjoined  ecclesiastical  requirements.  The  road 
to  heaven  was  marked  out  with  the  definiteness  of  the  old  Leviti- 
cal  Code,  through  a  multitude  of  prescribed  ceremonials.  The 
Council  of  Trent  maintained  that  at  least  six  other  acts  on  man's 
part  were  equally  necessary  for  justification,  faith  being  only  the 
first  and  most  fundamental.  These  were  fear,  hope,  love,  pen- 
itence or  purpose  of  receiving  the  sacrament,  and  beginning  a  life 
of  obedience.  Men  busied  themselves  in  climbing  up  the  rounds 
of  a  ladder  of  man's  construction  that  was  supposed  to  end  in 
heaven  at  the  top  of  the  exacting  ascent.  Everything  in  re- 
ligion was  officially  classified  and  numbered.  It  was  all  a  matter 
of  prescription  and  classification  in  the  great  matter  of  salvation. 
"The  life  of  the  believer,"  as  has  been  so  well  said,  "had  become 
in  some  way  separated  from  the  life  of  Christ,  and  his  virtue,  in- 
stead of  being  a  stream  flowing  forth  from  the  throne  of  God, 
and  descending  upon  the  earth,  had  come  to  be  regarded  by  him  as 
a  pyramid  upon  earth,  wdiich  he  had  to  build  up  step  by  step, 
that  from  the  top  of  it  he  might  reach  the  heavens.  It  was  not 
possible  to  measure  the  waves  of  the  water  of  life,  but  it  was  per- 
fectly possible  to  measure  the  bricks  of  the  tower  of  Babel ;  and 
gradually,  as  the  thoughts  of  men  were  withdrawn  from  their 
Redeemer  and  fixed  upon  themselves,  the  virtues  began  to  be 
squared,  and  counted,  and  classified,  and  put  into  separate  heaps 
of  firsts  and  seconds;  some  things  being  virtuous  cardinally  and 
other  virtues  being  virtuous  only  north-northwest.  It  is  very 
curious  to  bring  into  close  relation  the  words  of  the  apostles 
and  some  of  the  writers  of  the  fifteenth  century  touching  sanctifi- 
cation.  For  instance,  hear  first  St.  Paul  to  the  Thessalonians : 
'Thy  very  God  of  peace  sanctify  you  wholly  ;  and  I  pray  God  your 
whole  spirit  and  soul  and  body  be  preserved  blameless  until  the 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  239 

coming  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Faithful  is  he  that  calleth  you, 
who  also  will  do  it.'  And  then  the  following  part  of  a  prayer 
from  a  manuscript  of  the  fifteenth  century:  'May  He  (the  Holy 
Spirit)  govern  the  five  senses  of  my  body;  may  He  cause  me  to 
embrace  the  Seven  Works  of  Mercy,  and  firmly  to  believe  and 
observe  the  Twelve  Articles  of  the  Faith,  and  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments of  the  Law,  and  defend  me  from  the  Seven  Mortal 
Sins,  even  to  the  end.'  " 

In  contrast  to  all  this  Judaizing  legalism  in  religion,  the  re- 
formers properly  understood  by  faith  a  gift  of  God's  grace  which 
leads  men  to  repentance  and  creates  in  the  heart  trust  in  God  and 
obedience  to  the  divine  will ;  that  a  trusting  heart  sets  men  right 
before  God  and  inevitably  leads  to  good  works.  Now  Luther 
had  tried  all  this  through  and  through.  He  had  in  all  sincerity, 
consuming  zeal  and  punctilious  diligence,  performed  all  the  re- 
quired fasts  and  vigils,  had  done  the  most  menial  services  and  had 
humbly  obeyed  all  that  the  Church  prescribed  in  order  to  attain 
its  assurance  of  salvation  and  forgiveness.  But  all  had  been 
done  in  vain.  The  depth  of  his  nature  and  piety,  his  penetration 
into  the  mystery  of  godliness,  made  him  go  deeper  in  his  search 
for  the  way  of  peace  and  salvation.  With  a  good  and  real  man's 
dread  of  shams  and  a  great  man's  love  of  standing  on  realities, 
he  pushed  on  back  of  the  Church's  word  that  he  was  forgiven  in 
his  painful  search  for  the  experience  of  pardon.  Pushing  on  back 
of  the  priestly  absolution  given  him,  he  sought  for  something  in 
his  own  private  and  personal  experience  that  would  assure  him 
that,  without  external  mediations,  there  was  between  him  and 
God  established  that  reconciliation  and  peace  which  passeth  all 
understanding.  Not  satisfied  with  the  Church's  official  assur- 
ance that  all  was  well,  he  craved  the  divine  assurance  to  be  found 
only  in  an  acceptance  of  certain  great  facts  which  the  New  Testa- 
ment had  revealed,  and  in  the  belief  that  God  Himself  was  freely 
offering  forgiveness  to  all  upon  the  one  condition  of  repentance 
and  faith.  The  secret  of  his  masterful  place  as  teacher,  preacher, 
leader,  reformer  and  constructive  theologian  was  out  when 
Luther  discovered  in  the  midst  of  his  spiritual  struggles  that  he 
himself  could  never  do  anything  to  deserve  salvation,  but  that  he 
must  accept  it  as  a  free  and  unmerited  gift.  Delivered  from  the 
bondage  of  medieval  conceptions  of  salvation,  he  became  aware 
that  he  had  entered  into  fellowship  with  God,  that  he  had  come 


• 


240         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

to  deal  directly  with  Christ,  his  adorable  Lord  and  Saviour.  Not 
in  consequence  of  an  elaborately  articulated  ceremonialism,  but 
by  personal  dealing  with  his  ever-living  Redeemer  had  he  come  to 
spiritual  tranquillity.  He  found  that  routine  externalism  could 
not  secure  salvation.  His  despair  of  ever  achieving  salvation  by 
merit  at  last  set  him  to  searching  for  another  method  of  being 
saved.  He  found  a  Bible,  and  there  at  once  ensued  a  rediscovery 
of  what  Paul  had  taught  and  elaborated  with  such  masterful 
argument  centuries  before.  Coming  upon  such  declarations  as 
these:  "That  he  might  himself  be  just  and  the  justifier  of  him 
that  hath  faith  in  Jesus ;"  "we  reckon,  therefore,  that  a  man  is 
justified  by  faith  apart  from  the  works  of  the  law,"  and  "but  to 
to  him  that  worketh  not  but  believeth  on  Him  that  justifieth  the 
ungodly,  his  faith  is  reckoned  for  righteousness,"  the  sins  from 
which  he  sought  for  deliverance  no  longer  filled  his  soul  with 
terror.  The  truth  revealed  to  St.  Paul  at  last  flashed  upon 
Luther,  that  the  divine  mercy  transcends  all  the  heights  and 
depths  of  human  hope,  that  the  weakest  and  guiltiest  of  our  race 
may  receive  absolution  from  the  very  lips  of  God  and  have  access 
by  Christ  into  that  grace  wherein  all  saintly  souls  have  stood.  It 
was  this  gospel  which  Luther  preached  and  which  came  to  the 
heart  of  Europe  like  the  light  of  a  new  day  after  a  dark  and 
desolate  night  of  tempest  and  storm,  making  all  who  received 
it  glad  with  an  inexpressible  joy. 

Roman  Christianity  had  gradually  been  shaped  into  ceremonial, 
ascetic  and  sacerdotal  forms  until  at  last  the  Roman  element  in  it 
had  become  supreme  and  the  Christian  subordinate.  The  Ref- 
ormation, as  in  a  sense  also  monasticism  and  mysticism,  was  a 
revolt  against  the  corporate  conception  of  salvation  and  a  plea  for 
personal  religion  not  entirely  dependent  upon  the  offices  of  the 
Church.  More  and  more  for  centuries  Rome  had  set  forth  obe- 
dience to  the  Church  as  the  comprehensive  ideal  of  duty,  and 
summed  up  all  sin  as  the  crime  of  disobedience.  Now  at  the  end 
of  the  long  night  of  these  depressing  errors,  men  once  more  heard 
a  gospel  that  was  worth  preaching,  that  of  direct  access  to  God, 
not  for  saints  alone,  but  for  sinners  as  well,  that  they  may  be  as- 
sured of  the  forgiveness  of  sin  and  inspired  with  strength  to  sin 
no  more.  To  all  the  hesitating  questions  that  might  be  raised 
this  gospel  had  but  one  comprehensive  and  assuring  reply — you 
may  trust  God  and  trust  Him  perfectly  and  trust  Him  now;  that 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  241 

through  Christ  we  have  grace,  righteousness  and  the  remission  of 
sins.  This  Gospel,  at  once  new  but  old,  was  the  gracious  procla- 
mation, in  consequence  of  which  the  cloud  was  suddenly  lifted. 
The  face  of  God  was  revealed  as  gracious  and  propitious  to 
them  through  Christ,  and  they  were  only  asked  to  love  him,  and 
for  their  Saviour's  sake  to  try  to  do  His  will  and  to  live  in  faith 
and  trust  towards  Him,  and  in  love  towards  their  neighbor.  It 
was  that  glad  gospel  that  once  more  began  on  earth  the  develop- 
ment of  a  characteristic  type  of  free,  confident,  generous,  ener- 
getic and  childlike  Christianity. 

In  consequence  of  this  new  apprehension  of  the  Gospel,  there 
came  about  a  great  change  in  the  whole  outlook  and  standpoint 
of  the  Christian  Church.  This  new  conception  of  Christ  and  of 
God  in  Christ,  of  sin,  forgiveness  and  assurance  altered  the  whole 
face  of  Christianity.  The  gulf  between  God  and  man  was 
bridged.  The  priest,  who  was  without  warrant  interposed  be- 
tween God  and  man,  became  an  impertinence,  and  the  old 
methods  of  approach  to  God,  through  the  saints  and  indulgences, 
became  as  rubbish  and  had  to  be  cast  away.  There  sprang  up  in 
the  Church  a  living  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Saviour  of  man, 
the  source  of  grace,  righteousness  and  hope  for  the  life  that  now 
is  and  that  which  is  to  come.  The  new  principle  of  salvation  be- 
came the  source  of  all  that  was  best  in  modern  life.  The  grace 
of  God  in  Jesus  Christ  had  come  again  to  men,  and  there  sprang 
up  a  quickened  and  more  intelligent  devotion  to  the  Person  of  the 
Lord,  Son  of  God,  Son  of  man  and  Saviour  of  the  world.  De- 
liverance at  last  had  come  from  a  conception  of  salvation  that 
makes  the  sinner  fall  into  the  hands  of  man  rather  than  into  the 
hands  of  the  all-merciful  and  all-sufficient  God.  The  Church  had 
at  last  emerged  from  the  book  of  Leviticus,  with  its  minute 
legalistic  requirements  into  the  New  Testament  Epistle  to  tht 
Hebrews,  in  which  we  have  the  chief  blessing  of  the  Christian 
dispensation  represented  as  access  to  God,  and  the  contrast  pre- 
sented between  immediacy  of  approach  in  Christ  and  the  way  in 
which,  under  the  old  dispensation,  it  was  fenced  and  cumbered 
by  the  intervention  of  a  human  priesthood.  Augustine,  the 
greatest  of  the  post-apostolic  fathers,  and  Luther,  the  greatest  of 
the  reformers,  both  alike  rested  upon  the  fundamental  religious 
assumption  of  the  free  grace  of  God,  as  constituting  the  one 
saving  power  for  man.     But  they  parted  company  in  their  con- 


242         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

ceptions  of  how  that  grace  was  to  be  obtained.  Augustine's  views 
held  him  to  subject  himself  humbly  to  the  Church,  and  to  become 
the  chief  exponent  of  the  theory  that  outside  the  visible  Church 
there  was  no  salvation.  Luther,  on  the  other  hand,  transferring 
the  emphasis  from  the  mechanicalism  of  the  sacramental  system 
to  the  truths  and  provisions  of  the  Christian  Gospel,  and  rejecting 
that  which  he  had  come  to  regard  as  the  chief  offence  against 
true  religion,  the  Judaizing  doctrine  of  human  merit,  that  which 
had  thrown  doubt  on  the  sufficiency  of  Christ's  work  and  thus 
creating  a  feeling  of  religious  insecurity,  soared  aloft  with  an  in- 
comparable fervor  of  faith  to  the  very  heart  of  God  and  grasped 
once  more  the  significance  of  the  salvation  that  found  its  source 
in  the  divine  mercy.  Faith  became  for  him  what  it  was  for 
Paul,  what  it  was  in  the  words  of  Christ  our  Lord  and  Saviour, 
that  power  which  enables  a  man  to  throw  himself  into  the  arms  of 
the  Almighty  with  Whom  all  things  are  possible.  Men  were 
once  more  brought  back  to  a  confident,  steadfast  trust  reaching 
into  the  unseen,  into  that  joyful  sense  of  assurance  that  since 
Luther's  day  has  been  the  religious  ideal  of  Protestantism. 

VIII 

This  Lutheran  doctrine  of  justification  entered  at  once  upon 
an  important  and  influential  career.  It  was  impressed  deeply 
and  fixedly  upon  the  peoples  of  northern  Europe  and  upon  a 
theological  posterity.  It  is  difficult  to  over-estimate  the  power  of 
a  doctrine  which  brings  to  a  point  and  concentrates  in  one 
definite  and  comprehensive  principle  a  whole  mass  of  vague 
thought  and  inclination  existing  in  human  nature.  With  a  basis 
of  that  kind,  and  an  even  stronger  basis  in  the  Scriptures,  this 
great  doctrine  at  once  laid  marvelous  hold  upon  the  minds  of 
multitudes,  penetrated  them,  and  became  at  once  their  central  and 
informing  principle  in  religion.  It  went  forward,  being  the  com- 
fort and  stay,  the  one  Christian  creed  and  religious  strength  of 
many  minds.  The  more  it  is  studied  the  more  will  it  be  found 
in  all  the  controversies  of  the  Reformation  period  to  be  funda- 
mental, and  that  almost  all  the  errors  of  the  Roman  Church,  and 
of  the  sacerdotalism  which  is  in  essential  agreement  with  it, 
arise  from  failure  to  accept  without  reserve  this  central  truth  of 
the  New  Testament. 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  243 

From  the  very  beginning  the  theologians  of  the  old  Church 
fully  understood  the  far-reaching  consequences  of  the  Re- 
former's insistence  upon  the  newly  revived  doctrine  of  justifica- 
tion by  faith  alone.  Luther  might  deceive  himself  as  to  the  ex- 
tent of  his  acceptance  of  this  Pauline  conception  of  salvation, 
but  the  Roman  Curia  labored  under  no  such  delusion.  The  fa- 
mous historian  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  Paul  Sarpi,  says  that 
"all  the  errors  of  Martin  Luther  were  resolved  into  one  point — 
justification ;  for  this  denies  the  efficacy  of  the  sacraments,  the 
authority  of  priests,  the  purgatory,  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass  and 
all  other  remedies  for  the  remission  of  sins.  Therefore,  he  that 
will  establish  the  body  of  Catholic  doctrine  must  first  overthrow 
this  heresy  of  justification  by  faith  alone."  That  Luther  suc- 
ceeded so  fully  where  others  had  failed  was  not  expected,  but 
the  reason  of  his  success  is  indicated  in  the  answer  given  by  the 
able  Cardinal  John  Henry  Newman,  who  went  over  from  Angli- 
canism to  Rome,  when  he  says  of  him  that  "he  adopted  a  doc- 
trine, original,  specious,  fascinating,  persuasive,  powerful, 
against  Rome,  and  wonderfully  adapted,  as  if  prophetically,  to 
the  genius  of  the  times.  He  found  Christians  in  bondage  to  their 
works  and  observations ;  he  released  them  by  his  doctrine  of 
faith."  This  famous  writer,  in  his  "Lectures  on  Justification," 
says  that  it  was  Luther's  wish  to  extirpate  all  notions  of  human 
merit ;  next  to  give  peace  and  satisfaction  to  the  troubled  con- 
science." A  noble  end  this,  certainly,  to  be  attained,  and  that  he 
succeeded  in  the  undertaking,  the  same  strong  writer,  in  harmony 
with  the  Pauline  interpretation  on  the  same  subject,  indicates  in 
these  words :  "Luther's  view  of  the  Gospel  covenant  met  both  the 
alleged  evils  against  which  it  was  provided.  For  if  Christ  has 
obeyed  the  law  instead  of  us,  it  follows  that  every  believer  has 
at  once  a  perfect  righteousness,  yet  not  his  own.  That  it  is  not 
his  own  precludes  all  boasting;  that  it  is  perfect  precludes  all 
anxiety.     The  conscience  is  unladen  without  being  puffed  up." 

The  vitality  of  this  great  doctrine  as  a  reformatory  principle 
soon  became  manifest  after  a  long  and  dismal  catalogue  of 
failures.  How  unspeakable  these  corruptions  in  teaching  and 
living  were  we  have  already  seen.  The  measures  proposed  to 
reform  the  Church  by  Councils  at  Pisa,  Constance,  Basel  and 
the  Lateran  had  all  signally  failed.  Even  Cardinal  Bellarmine 
had  dolefully  declared  that  "religion  was  almost  dead,"  and  the 


244         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

fairest  historian  Rome  has  ever  had,  in  the  person  of  Von  Doel- 
linger,  has  said  that  "the  last  hope  of  the  Reformation  of  the 
Church  was  carried  to  the  grave."  None  of  the  measures  pro- 
posed went  to  the  root  of  the  growths  that  had  troubled  Israel, 
none  had  proven  themselves  effective  enough  to  give  direction 
and  strength  and  triumph  to  any  of  these  efforts  to  heal  the  hurt 
of  the  Church.  Even  men  like  Colet,  More  and  Erasmus 
imagined  that  there  might  be  a  humanistic  regeneration  and  ex- 
orcism of  evils  that  had  fastened  themselves  upon  the  Body  of 
Christ,  which  might  in  turn  lead  to  the  removal  of  abuses,  to  a 
moral  quickening  and  to  a  new  and  more  ethical  interpretation  of 
the  dogmas  of  the  Church.  But  this  humanistic  dream  was  dis- 
pelled when  the  real  Reformation  came  to  pass.  When  Luther 
at  Worms,  in  1521,  refused  to  retract  what  he  had  written,  he 
planted  himself  down  upon  the  principle  of  the  supremacy  of 
the  human  conscience.  This  principle  insisted  upon,  effected 
much  that  was  essential  to  any  real  reform  in  the  Church.  It 
cut  up,  for  example,  by  the  roots  the  doctrine  that  there  is  any 
justifiable  and  scriptural  distinction  between  clergy  and  laity,  be- 
tween the  religious  and  the  secular  life.  The  Reformers  whole 
attitude  found  its  highest  expression  in  his  doctrine  of  justifica- 
tion, which,  according  to  his  understanding  of  St.  Paul,  as  we  have 
seen,  meant  that  man  needs  no  external  process  by  means  of 
which  he  is  to  attain  to  the  pardon  of  sins.  He  was  able  to 
grasp  the  great  truth  that  God  is  revealed  in  the  absolute  self- 
surrender  of  Christ,  and  that  through  faith  we  may  have  His 
righteousness  imparted  to  us ;  that  the  believer  through  faith  be- 
comes united  to  God  and  has  the  assurance  of  liberation  from 
sin.  He  set  aside  all  the  traditions  of  the  Church  as  despotic 
over  the  religious  consciousness  of  the  individual,  and  yet 
affirmed  that  man  can  only  find  his  true  self  in  direct  union  with 
God  in  Christ.  Scholasticism  on  the  one  hand,  and  monasticism 
on  the  other,  had  crushed  out  the  element  of  individualism  in  the 
Church.  A  vast  system  of  traditionalism  covered  every  phase  of 
thought  and  every  sphere  of  society,  leaving  no  room  for  any 
fresh  and  healthy  individual  life.  The  shadow  of  ecclesiastical 
authority  rested  on  everything,  and  imposed  its  arbitrary  re- 
straints. The  individual  was  nothing,  the  Church  was  every- 
thing. Within  the  Church  there  was  no  mental  or  spiritual 
freedom. 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  245 

But  Luther's  doctrine  of  justification  stood  for  a  revival  of 
individualism,  a  reassertion  of  Christian  personality,  for  the 
truth  that  righteousness  could  not  begin  in  what  a  corporation 
required  of  a  man,  but  in  a  divine  bestowment  upon  a  man  in  his 
personal  relations  to  God.  It  was  the  reality  of  this  personal 
freedom  in  Christ  that,  in  the  final  list  of  the  causes  of  reform, 
more  than  all  else  gave  impulse  and  triumph  to  the  Reforma- 
tion. It  laid  hold  upon  the  great  heart  of  the  German  people  and 
moved  it  profoundly.  More  effective  than  councils  or  human- 
ism, this  principle  made  a  living  way  for  itself  among  the  na- 
tions, and  carried  with  it  liberty  and  strength.  It  "shook  the 
ancient  cathedrals  to  their  inmost  shrines,"  and  brought  moral 
renovation  to  Europe.  It  showed  itself  to  be  of  God  and  power- 
ful with  the  might  of  God.  Professor  Rudolph  Sohm  has  ex- 
pressed the  judgment  warranted  by  his  fine  capacity  for  inter- 
preting the  movement:  "The  face  of  the  whole  world  was 
changed  by  the  Reformation,  with  its  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith  alone.  Believe  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  so  shalt  thou  be 
saved,  thyself  and  thy  whole  house ;  that  is  the  complete,  the 
whole  divine  Gospel,  that  can  neither  be  added  to  nor  taken 
away  from." 

One  of  the  secrets  of  the  primacy  of  Luther's  influence  as 
leader  of  the  people,  reformer  of  the  Church,  and  as  theologian, 
is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  he  so  strongly  grasped  this  prin- 
ciple not  only,  but  passed  through  the  evangelical  experience 
of  justification.  When  he  came  to  define  what  the  Gospel  was 
he  rose  above  the  level  of  mere  intellectualism  and  moralism. 
He  advanced  beyond  Romanism,  with  its  perpetuated  Jewish  and 
Hellenic  ideas,  and  produced  a  rift  in  western  Christendom 
which  could  not  be  passed  over,  and  recognized,  as  others  of  his 
contemporaries  did  not,  that  the  points  of  antithesis  between  the 
two  apprehensions  of  the  Gospel  were  so  wide  and  deep  that 
they  could  not  be  reconciled — which  accounts  for  the  fact  that  he 
was  never  sympathetic  with  any  of  the  numerous  proposals  of 
compromise.  He  discovered  that  the  Church  was  not  to  be  really 
reformed  by  the  elimination  of  current  superstitions,  the  correc- 
tion of  flagrant  abuses,  and  the  rejection  of  unwarranted  claims; 
that  the  cure  of  the  ills  of  the  Church  was  not  to  be  found  in 
mere  criticism  of  its  unscriptural  dogmas  or  the  change  of  its 
organization.     Remedies  of  this  kind  had  been  tried  and  found 


246         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

inadequate  always  by  medieval  reformatory  sects,  reforming 
councils  (that  were  not  reformatory  at  all),  Mystics  and  Human- 
ists. It  is  the  Catholic  historian.  Gasquet,  who  says :  "The  most 
zealous  sons  of  the  Church  never  hesitated  to  attack  this  or  that 
abuse  and  point  out  this  or  that  spot,  desiring  to  make  the  edifice 
of  God's  Church,  as  they  understood  it,  more  solid,  more  useful 
and  more  like  Christ's  ideal.  Before  1517  or  1521  no  one,  at  this 
period,  ever  dreamed  of  wishing  to  change  the  basis  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion  as  it  was  then  understood."  But  these  pre-Lutheran 
efforts  at  reform,  as  we  have  seen,  were  ineffective,  because  they 
went  not  to  the  root  of  the  trouble  in  dealing  with  the  hurt  of 
Israel. 

Romanism  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  product  of  an  unique  con- 
ception of  God  and  salvation,  and  upon  that  basis  it  had  for  a 
thousand  years  been  building  up  and  consolidating  its  mighty 
superstructure  of  ecclesiasticism.  That  conception  was  the 
formative  idea  in  its  worship,  its  polity,  its  doctrines  and  its 
morality.  Upon  that  basis  it  had  built  up  a  vast  and  complicated 
hierarchy  that  never  could  have  been  reformed  by  critics,  philos- 
ophers, theologians  or  ecclesiastics,  but  only  by  a  great  prophet, 
a  qualified  leader,  a  courageous  spirit,  who  had  found  in  the 
depth  of  his  own  experience  the  God  who  was  a  God  of  grace, 
and  a  fellowship  that  was  the  fellowship  of  faith.  Luther 
having  experienced  this  in  his  own  life,  became  the  heaven- 
anointed  leader  of  a  real  and  abiding  reformation.  He  was,  it 
is  true,  excommunicated  in  1520,  but  he  had  in  fact  become  sep- 
arated from  Rome  earlier,  because,  in  the  depths  of  his  own 
profound  religious  life,  he  had  already  gone  beyond  it  so  far  that 
he  could  not  retrace  his  steps  and  recant  without  stultifying  his 
higher  and  better  nature  and  trampling  upon  his  deepest  convic- 
tions. The  result  of  it  all  was  not  simply  a  protest,  with  some, 
phases  of  resulting  ecclesiastical  reform,  but  an  intellectual, 
moral,  political,  social  and  religious  transformation  and  recon- 
struction of  society,  which  were  so  far-reaching  in  their  influence 
that  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  mankind  was  inaugurated.  No 
real  reform  was  effected  until  one  big  and  sincere  soul  had  passed 
through  the  evangelical  experience  of  sin,  atonement,  forgiveness, 
faith   and   justification,   and   the   initial   stages   of   sanctification. 

Centuries  before,  the  Gospel,  as  a  distinct  message  of  redemp- 
tion, had  won  its  way  into  the  Roman  Emipre  in  the  face  of  a 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  247 

multitude  of  religions  and  cults  which  had  the  sanction  of  an 
alleged  divine  origin  and  centuries  of  tradition  behind  them.  It 
then  had  something  to  offer  which  the  world  longed  for  and  had 
not  hitherto  received  from  the  old  cults.  Its  message  of  grace 
and  power  then  differentiated  it  from  all  other  religions.  It 
was  reserved  for  Luther  again,  in  his  day,  to  grasp  anew,  with 
all  the  intensity  of  a  Paul  and  an  Augustine,  the  idea  that  re- 
demption through  Christ  was  something  more  than  the  driving 
away  of  evil  passions  and  vices — a  deliverance  from  death,  and 
an  assurance  of  eternal  life — that  it  was,  first  of  all,  a  joyous 
forgiveness  of  sins.  It  was  this  which  gave  the  movement  from 
its  inception  its  note  of  triumph  and  its  unique  and  world- 
conquering  power. 

There  never  has  been  a  day  when  this  principle  of  the  Lutheran 
Movement  of  the  sixteenth  century,  which  has  shown  not  only 
its  scripturalness,  but  its  vitality  and  effectiveness  as  a  corrective 
agency  and  reforming  power,  together  with  other  sacred  and 
lofty  principles,  needed  to  be  more  clearly  understood,  defended 
and  maintained,  than  today.  We  would  reproduce,  in  proof  of 
this,  the  strong  words  of  a  writer  and  leader  of  recognized  dis- 
tinction in  our  own  day.  President  Butler,  of  Columbia  Univer- 
sity, holds  the  lesson  of  the  Reformation  for  our  day  to  be  a  new 
emancipation  of  the  individual.     He  says: 

"To  recall  to  the  mind  of  the  twentieth  century  the  signficance 
of  the  great  movement  known  as  the  Reformation  is  valuable 
public  service.  The  modern  mind  is  threatened,  as  was  the  mind 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  with  the  dominance  of  a  philosophy  of 
life  and  of  religion  which  operates  to  minimize  the  functions  and 
the  freedom  of  the  individual,  and  to  make  each  individual 
merely  a  cog  in  the  wheel  of  a  powerful  and  dominating  group. 
The  pious  zeal  and  the  individual's  everlasting  desire  for  ex- 
pression and  for  responsibility,  which  were  foreshadowed  in 
European  history  by  St.  Dominic  and  St.  Francis,  as  well  as  by 
Roger  Bacon,  and  which  later  found  such  an  epoch-making  voice 
in  Martin  Luther,  need  to  find  new  expression  today.  The 
tyranny  which  threatens  in  the  twentieth  century  is  not  the 
tyranny  of  any  Church,  but  the  tyranny  of  a  majority  in  the  state, 
a  majority  so  constituted  that  it  is  not  content  with  guiding 
the  ordinary  business  of  government,  but  which  seeks  to  conform 
to  a  single  narrow  type  the  occupations,  the  gains,  the  amuse- 


248         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

ments  and  the  mode  of  living  of  every  individual.  If  the  world 
needed  a  religious  and  philosophical  reformation  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  in  order  to  emancipate  the  individual,  surely  it  needs  a 
social  and  political  reformation  in  the  twentieth  century  for  the 
same  purpose." 

IX 

What  has  been  said  in  the  foregoing  gives  us  the  reason  why 
Luther,  in  all  the  steps  of  his  progress  as  theologian  and  re- 
former, assigned  such  a  primacy  to  faith.  He  gave  the  world  a 
new  valuation  of  religion  as  faith,  reinstated  the  conception  that 
Christianity  in  its  inmost,  vital  element,  is  faith.  Underlying  all 
he  said  and  did  was  the  idea  of  the  sovereignty  of  faith.  For 
him  faith  was  man's  real  life  toward  God,  that  attitude  of  the 
soul  by  which  alone  he  had  any  standing  and  acceptance  with 
God.  Whatever  the  Christian  life  may  be  in  its  various  mani- 
festations, it  is  all  the  outgrowth  of  faith.  The  Reformer  recog- 
nized that  there  were  two  kinds  of  faith.  One  was  that  by  which 
men  believe  what  they  are  told  to  believe — a  kind  of  knowledge 
rather  than  faith — a  mere  mental  assent  to  certain  statements  and 
facts  as  true,  while  the  other  was  a  kind  of  faith  which  is  a 
trust  in  God,  a  casting  of  one's  self  upon  Him  for  help,  believing 
without  doubt  that  He  will  fulfill  His  promises.  Faith  accord- 
ing to  the  medieval  theology  was  an  effort  of  man  to  know  and 
see  God.  Luther  recognized  this  kind  of  faith  as  legitimate,  but 
calls  it  worthless  because  it  gives  us  nothing.  It  is  the  other  and 
real  kind  of  faith  which  gives  us  the  assurance  of  a  loving  God, 
who  makes  us  to  see  His  love  in  Jesus  Christ.  This  true  faith 
cannot  be  secured  by  effort,  for  it  is  the  gift  of  God.  It  is  im- 
portant to  note  that  the  practical  demands  of  the  religious  life 
were  the  impelling  power  in  Luther's  experience,  both  in  its 
genesis  and  growth,  and  in  its  application  to  the  problems  of 
his  age.  He  so  estimated  faith.  In  the  medieval  theology  the 
emphasis  had  been  placed  on  external  things,  on  the  doing  of 
good  works,  on  the  observance  of  laws.  Even  some  of  the  radi- 
cals among  the  reformers  were  influenced  by  the  same  error,  for 
Carlstadt  and  men  of  like  mind  soon  fell  into  the  fallacy  of  re- 
forming people  by  means  of  iconoclasm  practiced  on  church 
buildings  more  than  by  means  of  accent  upon  the  principle  of 
faith  in  the  hearts  of  the  people.     The  emphasis  was  shifted  by 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  249 

both  Romanists  and  radicals  from  what  God  does  in  man  by 
means  of  faith,  which  is  God's  gift,  to  what  man  himself  does. 
The  greatness  of  Luther's  place  as  preacher  and  reformer,  and 
his  abiding  influence  in  the  world  to  this  hour,  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  he  had  learned  anew  the  meaning  of  that  great  word,  faith, 
and  had  come  to  recognize  in  it  the  vital  principle  of  religion,  the 
real  essence  of  the  Christian  revelation  in  the  Gospel. 

Prof.  Voigt,  one  of  our  own  most  accomplished  theologians, 
has  given  to  it  a  fine  and  inclusive  statement  in  these  words: 
"He  (Luther)  never  formally  defined  faith  in  technical  terms, 
but  in  the  greatest  variety  of  representations  he  shows  its  source, 
its  possessions,  its  power,  its  effects.  He  realized  in  his  own  ex- 
perience that  it  is  the  work  of  God  in  the  human  soul ;  it  is  the 
regeneration  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  it  lays  hold  of  Christ  and  all 
God  has  promised  to  men  in  His  grace;  it  is  man's  freedom  and 
redemption  from  the  powers  of  evil,  the  devil,  death  and  sin ;  it 
is  the  life  of  the  soul  in  God;  it  is  the  spring  of  love  and  all 
good  works.  'If  you  believe,  you  have.  If  you  do  not  believe, 
you  do  not  have.'  So  he  sententiously  declared  that  religion  and 
all  its  blessings  are  included  in  faith.  This  was  a  new  under- 
standing of  Christianity  from  its  very  heart.  Those,  who,  in 
earlier  centuries,  like  Augustine  and  Bernard,  had  come  nearest 
to  it,  still  had  missed  it.  This  valuation  of  religion  as  faith 
made  it  intensely  personal.  It  brought  man  face  to  face  with 
God,  and  not  only  to  the  Church,  with  its  doctrines  and  require- 
ments. It  showed  to  souls  that  yearned  for  God  the  true  and 
only  way  to  come  to  Him  and  live  in  Him.  All  in  religion  is  of 
faith  because  all  is  grace."  What  the  Reformer  had  learned  was 
to  trust  God  courageously  and  count  all  things  of  but  little 
moment  as  compared  with  this,  the  greatest  principle  in  re- 
ligion. "Out  of  a  complex  system  of  expiations,  good  deeds  and 
comfortings,  of  strict  statutes  and  uncertain  appointments  of 
grace,  out  of  magic  and  blind  obedience,"  says  Prof.  Harnack, 
"Luther  led  religion  forth  and  gave  it  a  strenuously  concentrated 
form.  The  Christian  religion  is  the  living  assurance  of  the  liv- 
ing God  who  has  revealed  Himself  and  opens  His  heart  in  Christ 
— nothing  more." 

It  was  a  vital  part  of  this  fundamental  experience  that  the  liv- 
ing God  who  had  manifested  Himself  in  Christ  was  accessible 
to  every  Christian.     The  Church  and  its  sacraments  had  really 


250         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

become  the  soul's  saviours,  having  usurped  the  primal  place  of 
faith.  The  rightful  order  of  importance  had  to  be  restored,  and 
again  Harnack  says:  "Rising  above  all  anxieties  and  terrors, 
above  all  ascetic  devices,  above  all  directions  of  theology,  above 
all  interventions  of  hierarchy  and  sacraments,  Luther  ventured 
to  lay  hold  of  God  himself  in  Christ,  and  in  this  act  of  faith, 
which  he  recognized  as  God's  work,  his  whole  being  obtained 
stability  and  firmness,  nay,  even  a  personal  joy  and  certainty 
which  no  medieval  Christian  had  ever  possessed."  This  fact  of 
God's  giving  the  believer  power  to  cast  himself  directly  and  un- 
reservedly on  God  for  salvation  once  more  placed  the  accent  in 
religion  in  the  right  place,  on  the  inner  things,  on  the  disposition 
of  a  man's  heart,  on  the  way  he  thinks  of  God  and  Christ.  The 
constant  emphasis  placed  on  this  by  Luther  has  led  to  some  mis- 
understanding. It  has  been  alleged,  especially  by  high  Anglicans, 
to  be  one-sided  and  contrary  to  Scripture  and  reason,  and  even 
to  savor  of  unethical  antinomianism.  It  is  well,  accordingly,  to 
hear  what  Luther  himself  says  in  his  explanation  of  the  Creed. 
"There  are  two  ways  of  believing.  One  way  is  to  believe  about 
God,  as  I  do  when  I  believe  that  what  is  said  of  God  is  true, 
just  as  I  do  when  I  believe  what  is  said  about  the  Turk,  the 
devil  or  hell.  This  faith  is  knowledge  or  observation,  rather  than 
faith.  The  other  way  is  to  believe  in  God,  as  I  do  when  I  not 
only  believe  that  what  is  said  about  Him  is  true,  but  put  my 
trust  in  Him,  surrender  myself  to  Him  and  make  bold  to  have 
dealings  with  Him,  believing  without  doubt  that  He  will  be  to  me 
and  do  to  me  just  what  is  said  of  Him.  *  *  *  This  faith, 
which  is  life  or  death  and  dares  to  believe  that  God  is  what  He 
is  said  to  be,  is  the  only  faith  that  makes  a  man  a  Christian. 
*  *  *  This  faith  no  false  and  evil  heart  can  have,  for  it  is  a 
living  faith.  *  *  *  Wherefore  the  word  in  is  rightly  used; 
and  it  is  carefully  to  be  noted  that  we  may  not  say,  "I  believe 
God  the  Father,"  or  "about  the  Father,"  but  "in  God  the  Father, 
in  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  Holy  Ghost."  This  faith  we  should  render 
to  no  one  but  God.  Therefore  we  confess  the  divinity  of  Jesus 
Christ  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost  when  we  believe  in  them,  even  as 
we  believe  in  the  Father ;  and  just  as  our  faith  in  all  three  Per- 
sons is  one  and  the  same  faith,  so  the  three  Persons  are  one  and 
the  same  God." 

In  his  great  treatise  on  "Christian  Liberty,"  one  of  the  three 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  TH£  MOVEMENT  251 

"Primary  Works"  of  1520,  the  most  central  in  its  significance  of 
all  of  Luther's  writings,  he  again  says :  "The  inward  man  can- 
not be  justified,  made  free  and  be  saved  by  any  outward  work  or 
dealing  whatsoever,  and  works,  whatever  their  character,  have 
nothing  to  do  with  this  inward  man.  On  the  other  hand,  only 
ungodliness  and  unbelief  of  heart,  and  no  outward  work,  make 
him  guilty  and  a  damnable  servant  of  sin.  Wherefore  it  ought  to 
be  the  first  concern  of  every  Christian  to  lay  aside  all  trust  in 
works,  and  more  and  more  to  strengthen  faith  alone  and 
through  faith  to  grow  in  knowledge,  not  of  works,  but  of  Christ 
Jesus,  Who  suffered  and  rose  for  him."  And  this  faith  which 
leads  men  thus  to  throw  themselves  on  God  is  no  mood  of  mere 
mystical  abandonment,  no  losing  of  one's  self  in  mere  abstract  con- 
templation, or  pietistic  introspection,  or  pious  meditation.  It  is, 
as  Luther  was  never  weary  of  saying,  our  very  life ;  not  simply 
God  within  us,  but  God  impelling  us  to  all  good  activities  in 
spheres  of  Christian  usefulness.  By  means  of  it  not  only  do 
men  secure  the  forgiveness  of  their  sins,  but  are  by  this  life  prin- 
ciple of  religion  also  inspired  to  that  righteousness  which  finds 
expression  in  good  works.  Hear  Luther  again  in  speaking  of 
this  subject :  "It  is  a  living,  busy,  active,  powerful  thing,  this 
faith ;  it  is  impossble  for  it  not  to  do  us  good  continually.  It 
never  asks  whether  good  works  are  to  be  done ;  it  has  done  them 
before  there  is  time  to  ask  the  qusetion ;  and  it  is  always  doing 
them."  In  his  "Treatise  on  Good  Works"  once  more  the  fruitful 
pen  of  the  reformer  is  found  saying:  "Everyone  can  note  and 
tell  for  himself  when  he  does  what  is  good,  or  not  good ;  for  if 
he  finds  his  heart  confident  that  it  pleases  God,  the  work  is  good, 
even  if  it  were  so  small  a  thing  as  picking  up  a  straw.  If  con- 
fidence is  absent,  or  if  he  doubts,  the  work  is  not  good,  though 
it  were  to  raise  all  the  dead  and  the  man  were  to  give  himself  to 
be  burned.  *  *  *  Faith  as  the  chief  work,  and  no  other 
Avork,  has  given  us  our  name  of  Christians  (believer  in  Christ)  : 
for  all  other  works  a  heathen,  a  Turk,  a  sinner  may  also  do,  but 
to  trust  firmly  that  he  pleases  God  is  possible  only  for  a  Chris- 
tian who  is  enlightened  and  strengthened  by  grace."  The  very 
First  Commandment  means,  "Since  I  alone  am  God,  thou  shalt 
place  all  thy  confidence,  trust  and  faith  in  Me  alone  and  on  no 
one  else."  "Having  a  God"  is  "to  trust  Him  with  the  heart,  and 
look  to  Him  for  all  good,  grace  and  favor,  whether  in  works  or 


252         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

in  sufferings,  in  life  or  death,  in  joy  or  sorrow/'  *  *  *  "This 
faith  *  *  *  is  the  true  fulfilling  of  the  First  Command- 
ment." *  *  *  "So  faith  is  the  very  highest  and  best  work, 
from  which  all  others  must  proceed."  Elsewhere  he  calls  it 
"the  captain  of  good  works." 

"Lo!  thus  must  thou  form  Christ  within  thyself  and  see  how 
in  Him  God  holds  before  thee  and  offers  thee  His  mercy  without 
any  previous  merits  of  thine  own,  and  from  such  a  view  of  His 
grace  must  thou  draw  faith  and  confidence  of  the  forgiveness  of 
thy  sins.  Faith,  therefore,  does  not  begin  with  works,  neither 
do  they  create  it,  but  it  must  spring  and  flow  from  the  blood, 
wounds  and  death  of  Christ.  If  thou  see  in  these  that  God  is  so 
kindly  affectioned  toward  thee  that  He  gives  His  Son  for  thee, 
then  thy  heart  also  must  in  turn  grow  sweet  and  kindly  affec- 
tioned toward  God,  and  so  thy  confidence  must  grow  out  of  pure 
good-will  and  love — God's  love  toward  thee  and  thine  toward 
God." 

Thus  this  conception  of  what  is  the  vital  principle  of  Chris- 
tianity became  the  soul  of  the  Reformation.  No  matter  what 
Luther  was  writing  about,  we  always  find  him  assigning  the 
primacy  to  faith.  This  resting  of  the  heart  upon  Christ  was  a 
very  simple  but  at  the  same  time  a  very  comprehensive  matter. 
So  completely  does  it  dominate  the  life  of  a  real  Christian  that 
he  cannot  do  a  Christian  act  or  think  a  Christian  thought  without 
it.  His  conception  of  faith  it  was  which  led  to  his  view  regard- 
ing the  Scriptures.  It  made  the  Word  of  God  to  him  a  personal 
and  not  a  merely  dogmatic  or  legalistic  revelation.  To  him  God 
was  speaking  in  the  Bible  even  as  he  would  have  spoken  to  his 
fellow-men.  The  chief  function  of  these  Scriptures  was  to  bring 
Christ  to  him  and  to  all  men,  and  as  Jesus  is  the  full  revelation 
of  God,  the  chief  end  of  the  Bible  must  be  to  bring  God  near  to 
every  believer. 

These  Scriptures  became  to  Luther  the  record  and  portrayal  of 
blessed  spiritual  experiences  of  the  past,  such  as  he  had  now 
experienced  in  his  own  life.  Hence  his  eagerness  to  translate  the 
Bible  into  the  language  of  the  common  people  that  they,  too, 
might  know  at  first  hand  the  way  of  salvation  and  have  repro- 
duced in  their  lives  the  same  experience  of  communion  and  fel- 
lowship with  God.  He  perceived,  as  but  few  men  have,  in  the 
fulness  of  its  meaning,  the  content  of  the  Gospel,  which  had  been 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  253 

of  old  time  proclaimed  with  such  clearness  and  strength  by  St. 
Paul,  and  which  for  the  instruction  and  guidance  of  the  Church 
in  all  times,  has  been  written  down,  especially  in  the  Epistles  to 
the  Romans  and  Galatians.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that 
for  a  long  and  desolate  period  these  great  writings  of  the  Apostle 
were  not  fully  understood.  It  was  Luther's  mind,  gradually  dis- 
entangled from  traditional  conceptions  that  had  grown  up 
through  long  centuries  of  perversion  and  misunderstanding,  that 
was  to  learn  anew  the  meaning  of  Scripture  faith.  Indeed,  the 
debt  which  the  Christian  world  owes  to  Luther  is  so  great  and 
so  varied  that  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  it  in  its  full  extent,  or  to 
exhibit  it  in  all  its  length  and  breadth.  But  certainly  one  of  the 
principal  occasions  of  that  indebtedness  is  the  fact  that  the  chief 
of  the  Reformers  succeeded  in  restoring  to  Christendom  once  more 
the  presence  and  principles  of  the  great  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles. 
The  struggle  between  what  is  known  as  Jewish  Christianity 
and  Gentile  Christianity  was  the  chief  ground  of  division  in  the 
minds  and  sympathies  of  the  early  Church.  That  struggle  be- 
tween two  apprehensions  of  Christianity  has  not  entirely  subsided 
even  in  our  day,  when  we  sometimes  encounter  the  remains  of  a 
Puritanic  and  work-righteousness  aspect  of  religion  among  ultra 
Protestant  sects.  In  the  controversy  of  his  day  pertaining  to 
freedom  from  the  exactions  of  the  Jewish  law,  Paul  seemed  to 
have  the  best  of  it.  but  his  triumph  was  not  of  long  duration. 
During  his  life-time  he  achieved  a  leading  position  in  the  Church 
at  Rome  in  a  city  which,  from  force  of  circumstances,  after- 
wards became  the  center  of  Christianity.  But  what  influence 
the  apostle  had  won  there  soon  passed  away  in  the  presence  of 
the  energy,  persistency  and  popularity  of  the  reintroduced  sacer- 
dotalism of  the  ancient  Jewish  dispensation.  By  tradition  and 
by  theory  Rome  was  equally  the  seat  of  Paul  and  Peter,  but  the 
latter  soon  ascended  to  a  primacy  that  has  no  adequate  basis  in 
either  Scripture,  history  or  in  the  comparative  gifts  or  influence 
of  the  two  apostles.  Paul  at  Rome  was  soon  retired  into  the 
background,  his  latest  appearance,  according  to  tradition,  having 
been  in  the  capacity  of  a  ghost,  when,  at  the  famous  and  decisive 
battle  of  Chalons,  fought  in  451  A.  D.,  to  resist  the  efforts  of 
Attila  the  Hun  to  establish  an  anti-Christian  empire  upon  the 
ruins  of  Rome,  the  chief  of  the  apostles  stood  by  the  side  of  Leo 
the  Great,  the  real  founder  of  the  papacy,  to  assist  in  frightening 


254         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

away  the  plundering  pagan  from  his  diabolical  enterprise  in  one 
of  the  most  important  contests  recorded  in  history.  Petrinism 
had  triumphed  ove?  Paulinism,  and  the  great  writer  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Roma  as  was  scarcely  remembered  except  in  the 
study  chambers  of  the  scholastics  and  the  hermitages  of  the 
mystics.  But  the  time  at  last  came  for  a  revival  of  interest  in 
Paul,  and  to  Luther  was  accorded  the  memorable  honor  of  being 
the  advocate  of  the  apostle's  doctrines,  and  henceforth  his  chief 
strength  was  found  in  the  circumstances  that  he  stood  upon  the 
basis  of  the  great  writings  of  the  New  Testament. 

The  whole  of  the  indulgence  controversy,  which  precipitated 
the  Reformation  movement,  came  about  because  that  infamous 
traffic  was  conducted  in  contravention  to  the  plain  teachings  of 
the  Scriptures  about  sin,  grace,  forgiveness,  salvation,  and  jus- 
tification. The  ends  sought  were  purely  sordid,  but  the  basis  of 
the  business  was  theological.  It  has  been  alleged  that  Luther  did 
not  attack  indulgences  themselves,  but  only  their  abuse.  It  was 
the  abuse  that  was  the  immediate  point  of  his  criticism,  but  he 
knew  that  he  was  bringing  the  system  itself  into  question.  He 
saw  very  clearly  that  anything  that  conflicted  with  the  doctrine  of 
the  forgiveness  of  sins  solely  because  of  the  merits  of  Christ,  and 
annulled  the  duty  of  Christian  charity,  must  be  radically  wrong. 
Indulgences  were  a  compound  of  truth  and  error.  In  the  prac- 
tice of  the  early  Church  they  grew  out  of  one  of  the  features  of 
Church  discipline.  The  indulgence  theory  had  its  beginnings  a 
thousand  years  before  Luther's  day,  and  continued  to  pervade 
the  whole  penitential  system  of  the  later  medieval  Church,  and 
had  done  so  from  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Ac- 
cording to  the  teaching  of  the  Church  in  its  earlier  history  when 
persons  had  been  guilty  of  mortal  sin.  before  they  could  be  re- 
stored to  God's  favor,  they  must  not  only  humbly  and  sorrow- 
fully confess  their  sins  to  the  priest,  but  also  perform  certain 
works  of  penance  indicated  authoritatively  by  the  Church. 
Sometimes  it  was  fasting  and  vigils,  and  sometimes  self-lacera- 
tion and  self-torture,  but  always  self-denial  of  some  order.  This 
^*as  declared  to  be  necessary  as  a.  satisfaction  for  their  sins. 
\Vhen  our  Lord  underwent  the  sacrifice  of  the  cross  more  merit 
resulted  than  was  necessary  to  save  those  who  had  lived  on  the 
earth  up  to  that  time.  This  superabundant  merit  was  further 
increased  from  the  life  of  Mary,  the  mother  of  Christ,  and  it  is 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  255 

still  further  and  constantly  being  augmented  by  those  saints 
whose  lives  have  been  such  as  to  enable  them  to  earn  merit  more 
than  sufficient  for  their  own  salvation.  This  store  of  super- 
erogatory merit  is  in  the  keeping  of  the  Church  and  can  be  dis- 
pensed by  means  of  indulgences,  at  the  discretion  of  the  pope,  the 
vicar  of  Christ  on  earth.  These  indulgences  were  granted  for 
pra}rers,  pilgrimages  and  other  good  works,  while  later  the  pen- 
alties were  more  frequently  remitted  by  the  Church  on  condition 
of  the  payment  of  a  sum  of  money.  In  the  conduct  of  the 
traffic  in  these  indulgences  the  old  innocent  words  of  penance, 
confession  and  satisfaction  took  on  new  meanings.  The  theory 
of  indulgences,  it  is  said,  has  never  yet  been  authoritatively  de- 
fined by  the  Church.  Originally  an  indulgence  meant  the  remis- 
sion of  the  penitential  discipline,  which,  even  when  a  sin  was  for- 
given, was  deemed  necessary  for  its  expiation.  Later  on  it  took 
the  form  of  commutation,  almsgiving  to  the  poor,  money  pay- 
ments for  religious  or  charitable  purposes,  pilgrimages  and  other 
pious  works  being  substituted  for  regular  canonical  penalties. 
For  a  long  time  they  were  issued  sparingly  and  care  was  exer- 
cised concerning  them.  Their  enormous  multiplication  followed, 
along  with  many  other  abuses,  what  is  known  as  the  "Great 
Western  Schism."  They  were  no  longer  proofs  of  repentance, 
but  penalties  of  sin.  The  beginning  of  the  business  which  called 
out  Luther's  revolt  is  well  known ;  how  that  Pope  Leo  X,  in  need 
of  money  for  many  purposes,  and  more  especially  the  building  of 
his  splendid  new  cathedral  of  St.  Peter's,  in  Rome,  determined  to 
obtain  it  by  a  liberal  granting  of  indulgences  to  penitent  sinners. 
"The  indulgence,"  says  Professor  Fisher,  in  his  "History  of  the 
Reformation,"  was  a  simple  bargain,  according  to  which,  on 
the  payment  of  a  stipulated  sum.  the  individual  received  a  full 
discharge  from  the  penalties  of  sin,  and  procured  the  release  of 
a  soul  from  the  flames  of  purgatory.  The  forgiveness  of  sin  was 
offered  in  the  market  for  money." 

The  whole  system  had  long  been  a  scandal  to  the  devout.  It 
is  enough  to  say  that  in  the  way  in  which  he  served  his  papal 
master,  the  pope,  Tetzel  signally  exhibited  the  impostures  and 
abuses  of  the  whole  indulgence  theory.  Coarse,  vulgar  and 
brazen,  he  carried  on  the  business  with  a  swing,  hawking  his 
commodities  in  churches,  public  streets,  taverns  and  ale  houses, 
like   those    spirited   dealers    in   meretricious   trinkets   to   be   en- 


256         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

countered  today  in  the  streets  of  almost  any  city  or  town.  At 
a  cross  set  up  in  the  market  place,  from  which  the  pope's  arms 
were  suspended,  the  auctioneer  extolled  the  merits  of  his  goods, 
the  crowd  in  the  meantime  standing  about  with  a  mixture  of  fun 
and  business,  very  much  like  a  crowd  that  may  now-a-days  be 
encountered  at  a  country  fair.  His  methods,  as  Dr.  McGiffert 
observes,  were  those  of  the  modern  traveling  evangelist.  This 
was  the  usual  form  of  Tetzel's  address  to  the  crowds  who  flocked 
about  him,  as  reported  by  the  historian  D'Aubigne : 

"Indulgences  are  the  most  precious  and  the  most  noble  of 
God's  gifts.  The  cross  (pointing  to  the  red  cross,  which  he 
carried  with  him)  has  as  much  efficacy  as  the  very  cross  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Come,  and  I  will  give  you  letters,  all  properly  sealed, 
by  which  even  the  sins  you  intend  to  commit  may  be  pardoned. 
There  is  no  sin  so  great  that  an  indulgence  cannot  remit.  Reflect 
then,  that,  by  means  of  these  letters,  you  can,  once  in  your  life, 
in  every  case  except  four,  which  are  reserved  for  the  Apostolic 
See,  and  afterwards  in  the  article  of  death,  obtain  a  plenary  re- 
mission of  all  your  penalties  and  all  your  sins.  But,  more  than 
this,"  said  Tetzel,  "indulgences  avail  not  only  for  the  living  but 
the  dead.  Priest !  noble  !  merchant !  wife !  youth !  maiden !  do 
you  not  hear  your  parents  and  your  other  friends  who  are  dead, 
and  who  cry  from  the  bottom  of  the  abyss:  'We  are  suffering 
horrible  torments !  a  trifling  alms  would  deliver  us ;  you  can  give 
it,  and  you  will  not!'  At  the  very  instant,"  continued  Tetzel, 
"that  the  money  rattles  at  the  bottom  of  the  chest,  the  soul  escapes 
from  purgatory  and  flies  liberated  to  heaven." 

In  his  strong  denunciation  directed  at  this  abomination  we 
discover  one  of  Luther's  marked  characteristics,  which  among 
others  indicate  his  bigness.  His  indignation  became  fierce  when 
he  discovered  that  his  own  people  had  been  buying  the  in- 
dulgences and  using  them  as  a  cloak  and  excuse  for  gross  of- 
fences against  the  moral  law.  But  in  Luther  there  was  no  re- 
sentment and  his  denunciation  was  never  personal,  and  hearing 
later  that  the  Dominican  huckster,  Tetzel,  had  become  seriously 
sick,  he  wrote  him  a  tender,  sympathetic  and  comforting  letter, 
commending  him  to  the  mercy  and  grace  of  God,  who  was 
abundantly  able  to  save.  The  violence  of  his  language  was 
never  personal  with  his  most  odious  opponents,  but  was  directed 
against  the  abuses  and  apostasies  represented  by  them. 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  257 

Many  rejoiced  that  at  last  one  man  had  been  bold  enough  to 
declaim  against  what  he  called  a  "gross  and  profane  error," 
while  earnest  souls  were  made  glad  that  the  vital  truths  about 
sin,  repentance,  confession  and  forgiveness  had  been  so  clearly 
stated  and  boldly  published.  Erasmus,  at  this  stage,  bold  enough 
to  at  least  indulge  in  a  reflection,  said :  "I  observe  that  the 
more  genuine  their  piety  and  the  purer  their  morals,  the  less  are 
men  opposed  to  Luther.  The  world  was  weary  of  a  doctrine  so 
full  of  puerile  fables,  and  thirsted  for  that  pure  and  living  water 
which  springs  from  the  veins  of  the  evangelists  and  apostles." 
The  preamble  to  the  theses  set  forth  in  the  academic  usage  of  the 
day  what  Luther,  at  this  stage  of  his  work  as  reformer,  contem- 
plated. "From  a  desire."  says  he,  "to  elicit  the  truth  the  following 
theses  will  be  maintained  at  Wittenberg  under  the  presidency  of 
the  Rev.  Father  Martin  Luther,  of  the  order  of  Augustines, 
master  of  arts,  master  and  lecturer  in  theology.  He  asks  that 
such  as  are  not  able  to  dispute  verbally  with  him  will  do  so  in 
writing.  In  the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  Amen."  The 
grossness  and  iniquity  of  this  business,  that  without  design  made 
Luther  a  reformer,  is  apparent  in  the  schedule  of  prices  affixed 
to  the  indulgences.  Every  sin  was  on  the  tariff  save  heresy 
alone.     Among  the  relatively  cheap  ones  we  may  note: 

Absolution  for  him  who  has  carnal  connection  with  mother, 
sister  or  other  kinswoman,  5  gr. 

For  him  who  deflowers  a  virgin,  6  gr. 

For  the  killing  of  a  layman  by  a  layman,  5  gr. 

From  the  more  expensive  luxuries  of  a  too  exuberant  and 
swift  life  may  be  noted  these: 

Annulling  or  putting  off  a  vow  of  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy 
Sepulchre  and  other  holy  places,  18  gr. 

And  among  the  indulgences,  a  general  dispensation  for  life, 
25  gr. 

In  1482  the  Paris  theologians  had  condemned  this  pecuniary 
poetry : 

Soon  as  the  coin  in  the  chest  doth  ring, 
Souls  out  of  purgatory  spring. 

Kings,    archbishops    and    princes    were    to    give    twenty-five 


258         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

Rhenish  gold  gulden ;  abbots,  counts  and  barons,  ten ;  people 
with  incomes  of  five  hundred  gulden  were  to  give  six ;  the  next 
class,  one;  poorer  ones,  one-half,  or  one-quarter,  or  even  less. 
The  poor  could  beg  till  they  had  the  price.  Upon  payment  a  re- 
ceipt was  given,  quite  business-like ;  in  fact,  the  thing  was  called 
'"The  Holy  Business."  There  was  a  regular  price  list;  perjury 
and  robbing  a  church  cost  nine  ducats,  murder  eight  ducats,  etc. 
Dispensations  for  marriage  within  tbe  prohibited  degrees,  the 
most  expensive  of  all  the  holy  luxuries  for  sale  and  usually  in- 
dulged in  by  monarchs  only,  were  rated  at  from  three  hundred  to 
six  hundred  ducats,  according  to  circumstances.  The  system 
was  marvelously  fruitful,  and  it  is  accordingly  no  matter  of  sur- 
prise that  the  audacious  Reformer  was  met  with  one  aim  and 
policy  by  the  ecclesiastical  chieftains  whose  resources  of  ducats 
and  gulden  had  been  imperiled.  Some  were  for  mild  sup- 
pression; others  for  fierce  suppression,  but  all  were  for  sup- 
pression without  delay.  "It  is  high  treason,"  exclaimed  Hoch- 
straten,  the  inquisitor  of  Cologne,  "against  the  Church  to  have 
such  a  heretic  alive  for  another  hour.  Erect  instantly  the  scaffold 
for  him." 

The  general  view  of  those  in  power,  even  when  less  violently 
expressed,  was  essentially  the  same.  But  there  were  others  who 
were  more  considerate  in  their  judgment,  and  who,  with  a  better 
forecast  of  coming  events,  with  more  moderation  discussed  the 
signs  of  the  times.  The  shepherd  of  the  Wittenberg  flock,  the 
bishop  of  Brandenburg,  discovered  nothing  heretical  in  them, 
while  Albert  Krantz,  of  Hamburg,  said:  "You  speak  the  truth, 
good  brother,  but  you'll  not  do  anything;  back  to  your  cell  and 
pray,  'God  have  mercy  upon  me!'"  At  Steinlausig  Prior  Fleck 
told  his  Franciscans,  "There  is  a  man  who  will  do  it !"  and  he 
wrote  Luther :  "Venerable  Doctor,  proceed !  Press  forward ! 
These  papal  abuses  always  displeased  me,  too,"  etc.  Germany's 
greatest  artist  of  all  times,  Albrecht  Durer,  sent  his  approval 
from  Nurnberg.  Kaiser  Maximilian  told  Frederick's  counselor, 
Pfeffinger,  Luther's  theses  were  not  to  be  despised,  and  the 
Elector  would  better  take  care  of  him,  for  he  might  some  day  be 
useful  against  the  prelates.  If  Sylvester  Prierias,  the  pope's 
confessor  and  master  of  the  papal  palace,  in  giving  an  expert 
opinion  of  the  theses,  expressed  his  resources  as  an  expert  in 
scurrilous  personal  abuse,  even  denouncing  Luther's  father  as  a 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  259 

dog,  for  biting  was  the  habit  of  dogs,  and  calling  the  Reformer 
himself  a  leper  with  a  nose  of  iron,  a  head  of  brass,  and  like 
billingsgate,  there  were  others,  who,  with  more  of  serious-mind- 
edness,  sensed  the  situation  and  discovered  that  Rome  had  at 
last  found  its  match  and  had  encountered  a  foe  difficult  to 
deal  with. 

But  this  was  the  great  truth :  the  significance  of  the  theses  was' 
to  be  found  in  their  doctrinal  teachings  on  the  old  subjects  of  sin 
and  salvation.  In  them  for  the  first  time  in  a  thousand  years  the 
evangelical  doctrine  of  a  free  and  gratuitous  remission  of  sins 
had  been  sounded  out  in  statements  publicly  professed  and 
heralded  to  the  world.  Listen  to  the  note  of  St.  Paul  once  more 
sounded  out  in  the  theses :  "When  our  Lord  and  Master  Jesus 
Christ  says,  'Repent,'  he  means  that  the  whole  life  of  believers 
upon  earth  should  be  a  constant  and  perpetual  repentance." 
"Still  our  Lord  does  not  mean  to  speak  solely  of  internal  repen- 
tance ;  internal  repentance  is  null  if  it  produce  not  externally 
every  kind  of  mortification  of  the  flesh."  "The  commissaries  of 
indulgences  are  in  error  when  they  say  that  by  the  papal  in- 
dulgences a  man  is  delivered  from  every  punishment  and  is 
saved."  "They  preach  mere  human  follies  who  maintain  that 
as  soon  as  the  money  rattled  in  the  strong  box  the  soul  flies  out 
of  purgatory."  "Those  who  fancy  themselves  sure  of  salvation 
by  indulgences  will  go  to  perdition  along  with  those  who  teach 
them  so."  "Every  true  Christian,  whether  dead  or  alive,  par- 
ticipates in  all  the  blessings  of  Christ,  or  of  the  Church,  by  God's 
gift,  and  without  a  letter  of  indulgence."  "The  true  and 
precious  treasure  of  the  Church  is  the  Holy  Gospel  of  the  glory 
and  grace  of  God." 

That  the  indulgence  represented  a  different  and  antithetical 
aspect  of  religion  is  manifest  in  these  words,  taken  from  a  copy 
in  common  use  at  the  time :  "I,  in  virtue  of  the  Apostolic 
power  committed  to  me  absolve  thee  from  all  ecclesiastical  cen- 
sures, judgments  and  penalties  that  thou  mayest  have  merited ; 
and  further,  from  all  excesses,  sins  and  crimes  that  thou  mayest 
have  committed,  however  great  and  enormous  they  may  be 
and  of  whatever  kind.  I  efface  all  the  stains  of  weakness  and 
all  traces  of  the  shame  that  thou  mayest  have  drawn  upon  thyself 
by  such  actions.  I  remit  the  pains  that  thou  wouldst  have  had 
to  endure  in  purgatory." 


260         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

At  the  time  of  the  publication  of  the  theses  Tetzel  was  at 
Frankfort  on  the  Oder,  pressing  his  sales  with  archiepiscopal  en- 
dorsement. He  fulminated  with  rage  and  alarm,  and  tried  to 
offset  their  effort  with  frenzied  harangues  and  publicly  abusing 
the  bold  propositions,  but  all  in  vain.  With  no  desire  at  this 
time  to  separate  himself  from  the  Church,  loyal  to  the  pope  and 
laboring  and  praying  only  for  the  reformation  of  the  Church, 
Luther  had  fired  the  opening  gun  in  the  most  significant  conflict 
of  modern  times.  In  the  progress  of  the  disputations  that  en- 
sued, he  could  not  help  advancing  step  by  step,  as  the  logic  of  his 
adversaries  forced  him  to  recur  to  the  fundamental  principles  of 
sacerdotal  medieval  theology,  since  the  refutation  of  their  con- 
clusions depended  so  largely  on  the  destruction  of  their  premises. 
"Thunder,"  as  has  been  said,  "was  now  everywhere  breeding  in 
the  air.  Strong  men  were  rising  up  on  both  sides,  either  in  de- 
fense of  principles  or  from  motive  of  policy."  Though  Luther 
himself  could  not  fully  understand  it,  this  indulgence  contro- 
versy was  the  inception  of  a  mighty  revolution.  The  words  of 
Froude,  the  great  English  historian,  correctly  interpret  the  sig- 
nificance of  his  attitude :  "The  spark  kindled  the  powder  which 
was  lying  everywhere,  ready  to  explode.  That  one  act  opened 
the  lips  of  Germany,  and  from  all  parts  there  rose  instantly  the 
cry  of  denunciation  against  the  Church  administration.  Eras- 
mus, best  of  witnesses  for  her,  himself  standing  apart  from  the 
movement,  testified  to  the  universal  delight  at  what  Luther  had 
done.  Kings,  princes,  bishops,  priests,  some  even  among  the 
monks  themselves,  equally  applauded.  A  brave  man  at  last  had 
been  found  to  utter  the  thoughts  of  them  all.  There  was  no 
question  of  teaching  them  any  new  doctrine  or  breaking  the  unity 
of  Christendom.  All  honest  men  knew  that  the  indulgences  were 
a  scandal  which  it  was  impossible  to  defend." 

X 

It  would  be  a  contradiction  of  well-known  facts  of  history  to 
deny  the  strong  influence  exercised  on  the  Lutheran  movement 
of  the  sixteenth  century  by  the  intellectual  and  social  forces 
that  were  contemporary  with  that  movement.  There  was  then,  as 
we  have  seen,  a  great  awakening  in  the  mental  life  and  political 
activity  of  Europe,  and  it  is  but  truth  to  say  that  the  movement 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  261 

inaugurated  by  Luther  in  the  nailing  up  of  his  theses  was  much 
influenced  by  both. 

But  however  much  that  movement  may  have  been  aided  by 
these  factors,  its  primary  and  dominant  cause  is  to  be  found 
always  in  the  new  religious  convictions  above  noted,  and  which 
were  then  taking  such  deep  root  in  the  hearts  of  men.  It  was, 
as  we  have  seen,  first  and  above  all,  a  return  to  the  fountain  of 
life  opened  up  in  the  sacred  Scriptures,  and  a  revival  of  spiritual 
life.  The  longing  for  closed  fellowship  with  God  and  a  more 
assured  peace,  that  had  been  so  prominent  in  the  spiritual  con- 
flicts of  Luther,  were  present  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  in  thou- 
sands of  good  and  devout  men  and  women  around  him.  The  re- 
sults of  his  long-continued  personal  religious  struggles  may  all  be 
summed  up  in  a  few  brief  phrases:  That  right  and  duty  are  for 
all ;  that  there  is  no  longer  a  privileged  religious  order,  or  eccles- 
iastical usages  which  can  exempt  men  from  moral  obligations ; 
that  in  matters  of  duty  and  religion  all  men  are  equal.  He  had, 
at  the  beginning,  no  idea  or  faintest  desire  of  bringing  his  views 
into  great  publicity.  He  had  quietly  and  unostentatiously  ex- 
pounded them  to  his  students  at  Wittenberg,  and  preached  them 
to  his  parishioners  from  the  pulpit  in  the  same  town.  When  he 
exposed  the  abuses  of  the  indulgence  traffic  being  conducted 
among  his  own  people  he  had  only  meant  to  serve  the  Church, 
and  that  only  by  pointing  out  in  an  academical  debate  the  danger 
in  these  abuses.  The  attempt  to  intimidate  and  browbeat  him 
into  subjection  by  an  assertion  of  ecclesiastical  officialism  aroused 
his  manly  spirit,  led  him  to  further  investigation,  and  by  and  by 
to  the  conviction  that  he  had  a  cause  to  plead  for  the  Church 
and  for  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Christ.  The  Church  attempted,  by 
methods  of  cajolery,  threat,  argument,  and,  finally  excommuni- 
cation, to  suppress  him.  But  supporters  sprang  up  on  every 
hand,  until  by  and  by  a  new  Church  system,  a  new  development 
of  religious  culture,  was  the  outcome. 

Protestantism  and  Romanism  do  not  differ  so  much  as  varieties 
of  one  and  the  same  religion,  but  as  two  distinct  religions, 
because  of  the  diverse  and,  so  frequently,  antithetical  ways  in 
which  they  define  what  is  at  the  basis  of  all  religion — a  man's  re- 
lation to  God  and  the  duties  depending  upon  that  relation. 

At  its  best,  Lutheranism  stands  for  the  power  of  personal 
religion,  for  the  spiritual  freedom  of  the  individual  as  answer- 


262         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

able,  in  the  final  issue,  to  his  Maker  alone.  It  further  stands 
for  the  prophetic  Word  of  God  as  the  dynamic  which  alone  can 
vitalize  the  ritual  of  the  priest,  make  efficacious  the  sacraments  of 
the  Church,  and  by  means  of  which  alone  the  Holy  Ghost  can 
work  where  and  when  it  pleases  Him  in  effecting  man's  restora- 
tion to  rightful  relations  with  God.  The  true  Protestant  wit- 
ness stands  for  the  Word  of  God,  which,  not  being  bound,  has 
borne  such  splendid  witness  to  the  truth  of  evangelicalism  and 
the  liberty  wherewith  Christ  doth  make  men  free.  It  has  always 
warned  its  own  disciples,  and  many  times  not  without  cause,  of 
the  deadness  of  the  letter,  excepting  as  it  expresses  and  mediates 
the  efficacious  working  of  the  third  Person  of  the  adorable 
Trinity. 

It  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  sense  of  sin  and  the  experience 
of  salvation  which  determined  Luther's  conception  of  Christ  as 
a  Saviour.  He  had  something  of  the  Pauline  experience  of  sin 
and  came,  accordingly,  to  the  Pauline  conception  of  a  Saviour 
needed  and  actualized.  With  him  the  necessity  for  and  the  doc- 
trine of  the  atonement  were  not  based  simply  on  Scripture  pas- 
sages, but  the  Scripture  passages  received  their  proper  value  be- 
cause he  had  actually  experienced  what  those  passages  revealed 
as  possible  and  that  which  they  described.  The  atonement  was  a 
revelation  to  Paul  and  to  Luther  of  something  that  was  deeply 
rooted  in  God's  nature  and  man's  need.  Luther  grasped  the 
scriptural  conception  of  man's  inability  to  save  himself,  whether 
by  mental  culture  or  moral  effort;  came  to  know  that  a  real  sal- 
vation was  an  act  of  God  in  Christ  to  be  appropriated  by  faith. 
In  our  day,  the  point  of  departure  of  all  liberal  theories  from  the 
evangelical  conception  of  salvation  is  found,  not  so  much  in 
radical  literary  hypotheses  and  canons,  as  in  its  conception  of  a 
Saviour  and  of  salvation. 

Thus  it  is  not  from  the  scientific  or  social  conscience  that  the 
informational  movement  of  the  sixteenth  century  proceeded.  It 
was  a  distinctly  religious  development.  The  form  it  took  in 
Luther  was  clue,  as  Kostlin,  his  biographer  and  interpreter,  de- 
clares, to  his  direct  and  mighty  grasp,  his  intuition  and  his  unify- 
ing view  of  religious  truth.  In  his  apprehension  of  the  truth  and 
interpretation  of  it,  he  had  what  amounted  almost  to  genius, 
a  balance  of  judgment  in  keeping  the  various  aspects  and  applica- 
tions of  the  truth  in  such  a  proper  co-ordination  that  a  real  and 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  263 

permanent  Protestantism  was  the  result.  In  their  prosecution 
of  the  work  of  reform  the  men  who  forsook  his  way  were  soon 
found  resorting  to  compulsion  and  physical  force,  rooting  out 
heresy  to  supplant  it  with  their  own  religio-political  views  propa- 
gated with  fire  and  sword.  Such  fell  an  easy  prey  to  anabaptism 
and  its  excesses,  to  socinianism,  to  enthusiasm  and  rationalism, 
sacramentarianism  and  spiritualism,  secularism  and  political 
methods.  By  the  soundness  of  his  principles  and  the  sanity  of 
his  methods  the  chief  of  the  reformers  not  only  reformed  Chris- 
tendom, but  incidentally  led  the  whole  world  into  new  channels 
of  liberty,  knowledge  and  culture,  and  this  mighty  work  was  ac- 
complished without  a  weapon  save  the  Word  of  God  only  and 
the  principles  that  by  fair  interpretation  are  deduced  there- 
from. 

Dr.  Philip  Schaff  has  said,  and  with  justice,  that  ''It  is  impos- 
sible to  reduce  the  fundamental  difference  between  Protestantism 
and  Romanism  to  a  single  formula  without  doing  injustice  to  one 
or  the  other.  Nor  should  we  forget  that  there  are  legalistic  and 
Romanizing  tendencies  in  Protestantism."  But  ignoring  the  ex- 
ceptions and  looking  only  at  the  prevailing  character  and  various 
aspects  of  the  two  systems,  there  are  strong  points  of  divergence. 
In  the  development  of  Protestantism  in  its  early  history,  not  only 
did  the  primary  principles  soon  become  manifest,  but  a  goodly 
number  of  secondary  and  inferential  principles,  all  of  which 
served  to  show  the  irreconcilable  opposition  between  Romanism 
and  Protestantism  of  every  shade.  It  would  be  easy  to  show  that 
the  principle  which  assumes  one  form  in  our  vindication  of  the 
right  to  private  judgment,  another  form  in  the  contention  for  the 
authority  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  yet  another  form  in  the 
doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  is  implied  and  actively  present 
in  every  one  of  the  controversies  between  the  two  apprehensions 
of  the  Gospel  and  the  Church.  The  antithesis  between  the  one 
and  the  other  is  manifest  at  many  points. 

The  Romanist  believed  in  the  authority  of  the  Church,  while 
with  the  Protestant  the  center  of  gravity  was  liberty;  the  one 
yielding  his  conscience  absolutely  to  the  priest,  while  the  other 
subordinated  his  to  God  alone.  In  a  terse  and  comprehensive 
statement  of  Dr.  Schaff  we  have  it  all :  "Freedom  in  Christ  is 
the  ultimate  root  of  evangelical  Protestantism,  while  bondage  in 
the  law  is  the  essence  of  Romanism,  and  freedom  from  Christ 


264         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

the  essence  of  Rationalism."  The  Romanist  believed  in  the  pope 
as  the  official  and  visible  representative  of  Christ  on  earth,  and 
in  the  hierarchy,  which  was  the  depository  and  administrator  of 
all  truth;  the  Protestant  looks  upon  all  men  as  equal  before  God, 
regards  the  ministry  as  an  office  in  the  Church  and  not  the 
Church  itself,  and  calls  the  Church  "the  congregation  of  the  saints 
and  true  believers."  The  Romanist  insists  that  all  authority  is 
to  be  found  in  the  one  visible  Church  of  which  the  pope  is  the 
head,  while  the  Protestant  always  harks  back  to  the  inspired 
Word  of  God,  the  only  source  and  norm  of  spiritual  truth,  and 
that  not  supplemented  by  any  verdict  of  human  reason  or  pre- 
tended immediate  revelations.  The  Romanist,  content  with  the 
teaching  of  the  Church,  was  willing  to  leave  the  interpretation  of 
the  Bible  solely  in  the  hands  of  the  Church ;  the  Protestant  held 
that  it  was  diligently  and  reverently  to  be  studied  by  all  as  the 
Word  of  God,  multiplying  its  translations  and  seeking  to  give  it 
to  all  the  peoples  of  the  earth  in  their  own  language.  Romanism 
was  chiefly  concerned  to  make  known  to  men  what  their  relation 
to  the  Church  must  be  in  order  to  insure  salvation ;  Protestantism 
was  more  concerned  about  making  known  the  fulness  of  the  mes- 
sage of  God,  who  for  Jesus'  sake  pardons  and  saves  sinful  men. 
The  Romanist  held  that  the  merits  of  Christ  could  be  made  ours 
only  through  the  sacraments,  and  that  these  were  dependent  in 
their  administration  upon  a  sacerdotal  class  of  men  duly  ordained 
and  being  in  an  alleged  "apostolical  succession."  The  Protestant, 
on  the  other  hand,  estimated  the  two  sacraments  instituted  by 
our  Lord  as  divine  appointments,  that  they  are  real  channels  of 
divine  grace,  but  attaching  to  them  no  efficacy  because  admin- 
istered by  priestly  hands,  and  holding  that  the  merits  of  Christ 
were  bestowed  upon  the  soul  only  in  response  to  sincere  and 
humble  faith.  According  to  Rome  the  Church  was  not  exclu- 
sively a  religious  organization,  but  was  something  of  an  ecclesias- 
tical state.  Protestantism  rediscovered  the  true  and  spiritual  char- 
acter of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  with  its  loving  Father  and 
merciful  and  gracious  Saviour.  Romanism  sought  God  through 
a  succession  of  mediators,  the  priest,  the  saints  and  Mary,  the 
Holy  Virgin ;  while  Protestantism  affirmed  that  there  was  but 
one  Mediator  between  God  and  man,  the  man  Christ  Jesus.  The 
one  of  these  forms  of  the  Christian  religion  teaches  that  a  man's 
relation  to  Christ  is  determined  by  his  relation  to  the  Church, 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  265 

while  the  other  declares  that  his  relation  to  the  Church  is  deter- 
mined always  by  his  relation  to  Christ. 

Thus  the  two  systems  stood  in  absolute  and  irreconcilable  opposi- 
tion, one  being  the  embodiment  of  individual  liberty  and  direct 
responsibility  to  God,  while  the  other  was  the  assertion  of  un- 
limited priestly  authority  and  the  demand  for  silent  and  sub- 
missive obedience  to  Church  authority.  That  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  some  of  the  aspects  of  its  teaching  and  organization 
makes  a  powerful  appeal  to  vast  multitudes  of  people  in  indis- 
putable. That  it  is  a  mighty  organization  for  doing  in  an  external 
way  what  is  essentially  an  inward  work  of  grace  in  the  believer's 
soul,  is  not  to  be  successfully  controverted.  It  presents  to  the 
inquirer  an  imposing  system.  He  comes  to  her  seeking  salvation, 
and  she  offers  him  a  refuge,  a  visible  fold  of  Christ,  an  organiza- 
tion out  of  which  is  no  salvation,  but  within  which  the  believer, 
who,  as  a  faithful  child,  yields  himself  to  her  guidance,  has  as- 
sured to  him  his  own  personal  salvation.  She  guarantees  on  the 
ground  of  obedience  that  she  will  see  him  through.  In  the 
performance  of  all  her  offices  for  the  soul  that  Church  begins  at 
birth,  and  readily  offers  her  services  to  the  end,  covering  the  entire 
round  of  a  man's  life  with  a  system  of  mechanically  working  sac- 
raments, and  even  reaching  beyond  the  frontiers  of  this  earthly 
life,  teaching  that  the  prayers  of  good  men  on  earth,  and  espe- 
cially the  offering  of  the  divine  sacrifice  of  the  mass,  will  avail 
to  even  abridge  purgatorial  sufferings. 

The  claims  are  imposing,  and  the  appeal  is  powerful.  But 
when  the  inquirer  asks  for  the  proofs  he  finds  himself  at  once 
lost  in  a  maze  of  unscriptural  claims  and  of  bad  and  irrelevant 
reasoning.  The  Romish  method  of  proof  has  ended  in  such  a  mass 
of  artificiality  and  inconsistency,  even  with  itself,  that  it  consti- 
tutes an  argument  against  its  own  unwarranted  claims.  In  con- 
trast, every  expression  of  a  genuinely  Protestant  faith  presents 
the  claims  of  a  religion  that  is  at  once  scriptural,  reasonable,  per- 
sonal and  spiritual.  In  carrying  out  these  principles  different 
Churches  have  arrived  at  different  results  as  regards  details  of 
organization  and  doctrinal  emphasis ;  but  all  Churches  true  to  the 
principles  of  the  Reformation  have  accepted  the  decrees  of  Nicea 
and  Chalcedon,  the  Augustinian  representation  of  the  theory  of 
the  necessity  of  divine  grace  in  salvation,  and  the  evangelical  doc- 
trine of   justification   by    faith   alone;   while  they  reject   papal 


266         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

authority  and  an  exclusive  priesthood,  mariolatry,  saint  worship 
and  image  adoration,  transubstantiation,  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass, 
the  withholding  of  the  cup  from  the  laity,  and  all  but  two  sacra- 
ments, indulgence,  purgatory  and  prayer  for  deliverance  of  the 
dead  therefrom,  monasticism,  compulsory  celibacy,  obligatory  con- 
fession, and  the  use  of  Latin  in  public  worship. 

Some  have  seen  in  this  great  Lutheran  movement  of  the  six- 
teenth century  nothing  more  than  a  revolt  of  the  laity  against  the 
clergy,  of  Teutonic  people  against  the  Latin,  of  the  kingdoms  of 
Europe  against  the  universal  monarchy  of  the  pope.  Some  have 
seen  in  it  nothing  more  than  the  bursting  forth  of  a  long  re- 
pressed spirit  of  revolt  against  the  luxury  of  prelates  and  the 
abuses  of  ecclesiastical  power.  All  these,  indeed,  to  some  extent 
it  was,  but  our  study  of  its  fundamental  and  its  secondary  prin- 
ciples has  shown  it  to  be  something  more  profound  and  fraught 
with  mightier  consequences  than  any  or  all  of  these  interpreta- 
tions. Let  us  recall  here  the  words  of  James  Bryce,  the  author 
of  the  "Holy  Roman  Empire."  "It  was,"  says  he,  "in  its  essence 
the  assertion  of  the  principle  of  individuality;  that  is  to  say,  of 
true  spiritual  freedom.  Hitherto  the  personal  consciousness  had 
been  a  faint  and  broken  reflection  of  the  universal ;  obedience 
had  been  held  as  the  first  of  religious  duties ;  truth  had  been  con- 
ceived as  a  something  external  and  possible,  which  the  priesthood, 
who  were  its  stewards,  were  to  communicate  to  the  passive  lay- 
men, and  whose  saving  virtue  lay,  not  in  its  being  felt  and  known 
by  him  to  be  truth,  but  in  a  purely  formal  and  unreasoning 
acceptance." 

The  result  of  the  introduction  of  the  principles  herein  dis- 
cussed was  that  all  this  was  reversed.  The  visible  Church  and 
the  priesthood  lost  that  magisterial  importance  which  had  hitherto 
belonged  to  both,  and  instead  of  longer  being  the  depository  of 
all  religious  truth  and  the  guardian  of  traditional  growths,  the 
source  and  dispenser  of  religious  life,  the  arbiter  of  eternal  hap- 
piness or  misery,  a  large  part  of  western  Christendom  at  least 
became  an  association  of  Christian  people,  "the  congregation  of 
the  saints,"  the  "blessed  company  of  all  faithful  people,"  organ- 
ized for  the  expression  of  mutual  sympathy,  for  the  better  at- 
tainment of  common  ends,  and  most  of  all  for  the  orderly  and 
becoming  administration  of  the  means  of  grace.  The  honors  and 
powers  which  had  been  conferred  upon  the  Church  by  its  Head 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  267 

and  Founder,  and  which  are  necessary  for  the  full  manifestation 
of  the  glory  of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  and  of  which  it  had 
been  stripped  by  the  papal  hierarchy,  were  once  more  restored 
to  it. 

These  are  critical  times,  and  even  those  whose  hearts  are 
loyal  to  Protestant  principles  may  sometimes  grow  faint.  But 
in  the  presence  of  dangers  that  menace  the  fair  inheritance  of 
faith  and  freedom  which  we  have  had  passed  on  to  us  by  our 
Protestant  ancestors,  we  may  still  have  faith  in  God  and  the 
vitality  of  His  truth,  and  ask  for  but  one  comprehensive  privilege 
— that  of  preaching  the  glorious  Gospel  of  the  blessed  God. 
demonstrated  in  the  conflicts  of  past  days  not  only  to  be  the 
power  of  God  unto  salvation,  but  mighty  in  the  overthrow  of 
principalities  and  powers  and  the  pulling  down  of  strongholds. 

There  stands  in  the  old  town  of  Wittenberg,  in  Germany, 
where  Luther  posted  his  famous  theses  on  the  church,  in  1517,  a 
solid  monument,  on  the  base  of  which  are  engraven  the  Re- 
former's own  words : 

"If  it  be  man's  work  it  dies; 
If  it  be  God's  work  it  lives." 

The  history  of  the  Reformation  and  its  principles  is  written 
in  that  inscription  even  unto  this  day.  What  was  man's  work 
then  has  passed,  and  what  is  man's  work  now  is  passing.  But 
the  truth  that  was  and  is  of  God  then  and  now  endures,  and  be- 
fore that  truth  in  the  age  we  have  had  under  contemplation  the 
magnificent  medieval  Church  began  swiftly  to  wane,  and  the 
Church  of  the  Reformation,  with  its  rising  vigor,  came  in.  The 
impulse  toward  reform,  which  had  been  inspired  by  disappoint- 
ment and  shame  at  the  vain  pretensions,  empty  claims  and  mani- 
fold apostasies  of  the  spiritual  chieftains  of  the  medieval  Church, 
had  not  been  lost,  but  at  last,  inspired  by  the  truth,  rose  up  to 
smite  the  evils  of  the  times  and  to  push  on  the  future  progress 
of  mankind. 


SECTION  IV 

SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS 

It  is  now  four  hundred  years  since  the  brave  monk  of  Witten- 
berg, defying  the  ecclesiastical  and  imperial  powers  and  following 
his  own  convictions  regarding  religion  and  duty,  nailed  his  im- 
mortal theses  upon  the  door  of  the  old  Castle  Church.  We  who 
are  now  living  are  far  enough  down  the  track  of  the  centuries 
which  have  ensued  since  that  act  to  fairly  estimate  its  deep  sig- 
nificance, inasmuch  as  we  have  shared  so  largely  in  the  new 
world  of  faith,  of  social  advancement  and  Christian  civilization 
that  was  then  begun.  True,  we  are  still  in  the  mid-process  of 
the  great  movement  which  had  its  inception  with  the  theses,  and 
dwell  amid  many  yet  unsettled  questions  of  faith  and  church  life 
and  organization,  as  well  as  amid  currents  and  counter-currents 
in  social  and  civic  life;  but  we  are,  nevertheless,  able  to  make 
such  an  induction  into  the  facts  involved,  and  so  read  them  in 
connection  with  Christian  history,  that  we  can  plainly  discern  in 
the  events  of  that  day,  not  merely  a  strife  of  doctrines,  but  a 
most  important  step  in  the  whole  growth  of  Christian  civilization. 
We  are  able  to  discern  in  the  Reformation  of  the  Church  then 
inaugurated,  the  ripe  fruit  of  struggles  that  had  preceded  and  a 
fact  bound  up  with  all  that  was  best  in  the  future.  We  now 
know  more  than  any  generation  which  has  preceded  us  has  known 
about  the  place  and  work  of  that  epoch-making  movement  in  the 
Providence  of  Him  who  is  the  inception  of  all  good  things  and 
who  knows  the  end  from  the  beginning. 

Hitherto  we  have  endeavored  to  discover  some  of  the  causes 
which  made  that  movement  under  Luther  a  necessity,  if  the 
Church  and  civilization  were  to  be  saved ;  to  give  something  of  an 
interpretation  of  the  chief  among  the  personal  forces  that  gave  it 
scope  and  direction ;  and  then  to  disclose  some  of  the  primary 
principles  which  lay  at  its  foundation  and  the  causes  which 
shaped  its  growth.  The  task  that  now  lies  before  us  is  to  in- 
dicate, in  a  fragmentary  way  only,  some  of  the  manifold  results 
of  that  movement  as  they  soon  began  to  manifest  themselves  in 

268 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  269 

the  sixteenth  century,  and  as  they  have  reached  to  our  own  day, 
and  shall  yet  reach  and  influence  all  later  times.  What  greater 
attestation  of  divine  approval  could  there  be  than  the  work  ac- 
complished from  its  beginnings  to  this  hour  by  that  greatest 
movement  in  the  history  of  religion  since  the  day  of  Pentecost? 
It  found  Europe  dead,  and  reinvigorated  it  with  life;  it  saw 
Christendom  languishing  in  the  stupor  of  medievalism,  but  quick- 
ened it  into  the  light  of  the  new  and  better  day  then  at  hand. 
That  the  soil  had  to  a  large  extent  been  prepared,  and  the  age 
made  ready  by  various  forces  that  had  long  been  at  work,  does 
not  detract  from  the  glory  of  the  man  who  co-ordinated  those 
forces  and  struck  the  decisive  blow. 

To  the  question  regarding  the  results  of  this  movement,  how- 
ever, it  must  be  said  various  and  discordant  answers  have  been 
given.  They  have  been  pronounced  "bad  and  only  bad,"  as  was 
to  be  expected,  by  the  bigoted  papist;  "disappointing,"  by  some 
alleged  Protestants  of  the  "High"  Anglican  order,  and  "insig- 
nificant," according  to  the  interpretation  of  modern  rationalistic 
radicals.  Even  in  our  own  day  of  ample  tolerance  for  all  sorts 
of  antithetical  views  in  the  sphere  of  religion,  in  a  period  when 
much  of  the  thinking  on  theological  lines  has  been  smitten  by  the 
spirit  of  negation,  neutrality  and  compromise,  the  reigning  pope, 
Benedict  XV,  so  late  as  November,  1914,  has  had  the  old-time 
papal  prejudice  to  refer  to  Protestants  as  "the  emissaries  of 
Satan,  who  set  up  pestilential  pulpits,  and,  like  Luther  and  Calvin, 
by  diabolical  machinations  commit  abominable  robbery  of  the 
peoples'  faith  and  seek  their  perdition." 

But  notwithstanding  these  misinterpretations,  partial  views  and 
outbursts  of  individual  papalism,  the  history  of  the  Protestant 
influence,  with  scarce  an  exception,  is  the  history  of  the  enter- 
prise, discovery,  arts,  science,  invention,  learning  and  philan- 
thropy which  have  been  the  best  expression  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion. It  would  be  hard  to  show  one  great  movement  in  the  past 
three  hundred  years,  that  has  been  attended  with  marked  and 
permanent  success,  and  which  has  effected  widely  the  welfare  of 
mankind,  that  had  its  origin  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  or  from  any 
people  dominated  by  its  teachings.  Not  to  the  peoples  under  the 
control  of  its  ancient  hierarchical  system  are  to  be  set  down  such 
achievements  as  the  great  political  reforms  of  England,  the 
colonization  of  America  and  the  consolidation  of  the  Germanic 


270         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

peoples  and  their  marvelous  development  down  to  the  great  war, 
together  with  the  progress  and  organization  of  popular  education 
and  the  conquest  of  nature  inaugurated  by  modern  science. 
Achievements  along  all  these  lines  are  to  be  credited  to  the 
emancipated  energy,  the  wider  intelligence,  the  individual 
strength  of  conviction,  and  that  moral  energy  which  Protestant- 
ism set  free  as  factors  contributing  most  largely  to  the  advance- 
ment of  mankind. 

In  answer  to  all  that  has  been  alleged  against  the  Reformation, 
because  of  some  of  the  abuses  that  early  sprang  up  in  its  wake, 
it  may  be  said  that  the  habits  of  centuries,  which  were  deeply 
rooted  in  the  medieval  system,  were  not  to  be  unlearned  in  a  few 
years,  and  that  the  new  ideas  then  coming  to  the  front  and 
struggling  into  existence  and  activity,  would  sometimes  work  not 
only  imperfectly,  but  even  frantically,  in  the  hands  of  enthusiasts 
and  radicals.  Much  of  that  which  may  be  classified  as  radical 
and  iconoclastic  in  that  period  was  not  any  legitimate  fruitage  of 
Protestant  teaching,  but  an  inheritance  from  the  old  system  of 
Roman  imperialism  and  ecclesiasticism.  The  sudden  emergence 
of  a  people  from  restraints  to  which  they  had  long  been  accus- 
tomed, and  which  the  reformers  had  come  to  regard  as  unneces- 
sary, is  frequently  attended  by  some  moral  loss  and  excessive 
measures.  In  a  time  of  revolt,  revolution  and  reconstruction, 
such  as  the  period  of  the  Reformation  furnishes  us,  the  risks 
that  some  discordant  elements  of  radicalism  and  false  mysticism 
will  come  to  the  front  with  impudent  and  self-righteous  assertive- 
ness,  must  be  taken,  otherwise  stagnation  would  ensue  and  the 
world  would  be  dominated  by  a  dead  and  unprogressive  con- 
servatism. 

In  the  period  in  which  the  good  fight  of  the  Reformation  was 
being  waged,  the  truth  and  true  Christian  life  had  become  so 
tied  up  with  a  worldly  and  wicked  hierarchy  that  the  truth  could 
not  prevail  and  the  real  Gospel  was  well-nigh  forgotten.  Great 
doctrines  antithetical  to  those  proclaimed  by  that  hierarchy,  and 
which  have  been  proved  to  be  such  influential  factors  in  modern 
religion  and  civilization,  were  then  being  framed  into  speech. 
Men  were  then  emerging  from  the  powerful  and  forbidding  do- 
minion of  the  penitential  system  of  the  Church  of  Rome  into  the 
liberty  of  the  sons  of  God,  leaving  behind  them  the  exactions  of 
the  canon  law,  the  bewildering  labyrinth  of  patristic  opinion,  con- 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  271 

ciliar  decretals  and  the  burdensome  exactions  of  the  priestly 
caste.  The  transition  was  great,  and  in  some  cases  abrupt.  It 
is  accordingly  not  surprising  that  there  sprang  up  at  once  in  the 
new  movement  strong  antagonisms,  misinterpretations,  excesses, 
and  mental  and  spiritual  hostility  when  this  fruitful  period  was 
estimated  as  to  its  immediate  products  and  worked-out  results. 


It  is  not  a  matter  of  surprise  that  the  advocates  of  the  old 
medieval  system  of  Church  life,  doctrine  and  organization  should 
have  denounced  the  Lutheran  movement,  pronouncing  it,  when  it 
saw  some  of  its  extravagant  results,  as  they  appeared,  to  be 
a  dangerous  species  of  individualism  and  an  unguarded  and  un- 
balanced display  of  subjectivism.  From  small  beginnings,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  hierarchical  idea  had  taken  possession  of  the 
Church,  and  the  tyranny  of  the  old  system  which  was  later  as- 
sailed by  Luther  became  established  as  a  matter  of  divine  author- 
ity over  the  minds  and  conscience,  as  it  claimed,  of  all  men.  The 
Reformation,  with  its  emphasis  on  inward  holiness,  which  in- 
spired a  new  ideal  of  the  Christian  life,  and  its  rightful  insistence 
upon  the  fact  that  a  man's  relation  to  the  Church  was  determined 
by  his  relation  to  Christ,  ran  counter  from  its  beginning  and  at 
many  points  to  the  official  judgments  that  were  handed  down  by 
the  big  ecclesiastical  organism  on  matters  of  faith  and  practice. 
Monasticism,  that  unnatural  conception  of  the  Christian  life, 
which  for  centuries  had  been  presented  as  the  highest  expression 
of  piety,  no  longer  controlled  as  it  once  did  the  minds  of  aspiring 
youth,  while  the  asceticism  commended  by  the  Church,  with  its 
ideal  of  flight  from  the  world,  had  ceased  to  be  longer  looked 
upon  by  multitudes  with  that  respect  and  veneration  once  ac- 
corded it.  These  and  other  factors  in  the  life  of  the  Church 
which  had  been  brought  together  into  a  great  and  powerful 
ecclesiastical  organism,  were  passing  into  a  state  of  distrust  and 
aroused  hostility. 

"Truth  does  not  regard  consequences"  was  a  noble  saying  about 
that  which  is  always  endowed  with  capacity  to  overcome  in  the 
final  issue.  But  history  furnishes  many  instances  in  which  the 
consequences  have  been  something  of  a  test  of  the  truth,  and  in 
some  of  which  the  perversions  of  the  truth  have  proved  to  be 


272         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

embarrassing.  In  fact,  it  may  be  said  that  history  is  a  long 
series  of  struggles  to  elevate  the  character  of  mankind  in  all  of 
its  aspects,  religious,  intellectual,  social  and  political.  But 
scarcely  any  step  has  been  made  in  this  upward  movement  that 
has  not  been  embarrassed  and  retarded  by  the  eccentricities,  radi- 
calism and  excesses  of  some  of  its  advocates  and  mistaken 
friends.  The  Reformation  was  in  none  of  its  aspects  a  wild  and 
unregulated  rebellion.  Had  it  been  that  it  would  early  in  its  his- 
tory have  broken  itself  to  pieces  and  been  completely  swept 
away.  There  were  no  lawless  elements  concealed  in  any  of  its 
fundamental  principles.  It  was  based  upon  no  radical  methods 
of  procedure.  Luther,  its  leader,  did  nothing  in  mere  revolt 
against  authority,  but  everything  for  the  sake  of  the  truth.  He 
realized,  as  did  none  of  the  contemporaries,  that  to  cast  off  the 
yoke  of  Rome,  intolerant  and  insufferable  as  that  yoke  had  been, 
was  a  perilous  undertaking,  and  he  accordingly  always  proceeded 
with  caution  and  conservatism.  He  was  no  advocate  of  that  li- 
cense which  is  born  of  self-will,  and  the  liberty  he  advocated 
was  always  the  child  of  law.  His  appeal  was  always  to  an 
authority,  objective,  sane  and  safe,  and  which  through  all  of  its 
history  has  conserved  mental  balance  and  obedience  to  attested 
principles.  But  every  good  thing  is  followed  by  its  counterfeits, 
and  sometimes  by  a  train  of  impostures  instead  of  expositions. 
Medicine  has  its  expression  many  times  in  quackery,  and  freedom 
has  not  infrequently  been  perverted  to  the  lawless  purposes  of 
anarchy.  The  very  best  things  have  been  proven  liable  to  per- 
version and  violent  abuse.  But  the  excesses  of  the  French  revo- 
lution, for  example,  do  not  brand  liberty  as  immoral  and  neces- 
sarily dangerous,  because  in  that  movement  in  the  closing  years 
of  the  eighteenth  and  the  opening  years  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
turies disastrous  and  irreligious  features  were  associated  with  it 
under  the  guise  of  a  devotion  to  liberty  and  its  blessings. 

Any  line  of  revolt  against  long-established  modes  of  thinking 
and  plans  of  organization  in  any  sphere  brings  to  the  front  the 
restless  enthusiast  and  unreasoning  radical  who  mistrust  a  man 
like  Luther,  who  not  only  dreamed  dreams,  but  was  withal  a 
practical  and  far-seeing  statesman.  That  he  could  not  go  all  the 
way  with  the  extremists  of  his  day  led  them  to  regard  him  as 
but  a  half-way  reformer.  His  wisdom  and  poise,  however,  have 
been  amply  justified  in  the  light  of  history.     Such  a  movement 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  273 

as  that  which  he  headed,  and  started,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned, 
all  unconsciously,  which  Guizot  suggestively  called  "a  great  in- 
surrection of  human  intelligence,"  was  destined  from  its  very  be- 
ginning to  quicken  currents  and  counter-currents  of  mental  ac- 
tivity and  a  variety  of  reformatory  methods.  In  any  period  the 
pulling  down  of  worn-out  institutions  brings  perplexity  and  some- 
times even  reproach.  Every  great  clash  of  human  opinion  is 
certain  to  be  accompanied  by  some  wild  and  unregulated  out- 
bursts, and  every  revolution  calls  out  the  uncontrolled  and  the 
uncontrollable,  such  as  Nicholas  Storch,  Andrew  von  Carlstadt, 
Marcus  Stiibner,  Gabriel  Zwilling,  the  Zwickau  prophets,  as 
they  were  called — people  who  combined  inward  mysticism  with 
practical  radicalism,  who  boasted  of  visions,  dreams  and  direct 
communications  with  God  and  the  angel  Gabriel,  who  disparaged 
the  written  Word  and  the  regular  ministry,  rejected  infant  bap- 
tism, and  predicated  the  overthrow  of  the  existing  order  of  things 
and  the  near  approach  of  a  democratic  millennium. 

The  history  of  the  Reformation  is  one  of  enduring  glory,  but  of 
transient  shame  if  we  consider  fanatical  expressions  as  belonging 
to  the  substance  of  it,  instead  of  mere  incidental  deflections  from 
it.  The  great  instrument  of  political  progress  is  generally  al- 
lowed to  be  liberty,  but  that  good  word  in  both  religion  and  civic 
life  and  organization  is  not  responsible  for  some  evil  things  in 
both  spheres  that  have  been  perpetrated  in  its  name.  It  is  a 
gross  perversion  when  certain  outbursts  of  radicalism  and  enorm- 
ities perpetrated  by  fanatical  sectaries  in  the  period  of  the  Ref- 
ormation, who  took  the  Old  Testament  for  their  Gospel  instead  of 
the  New,  are  seized  upon  by  its  enemies  to  cast  discredit  upon 
that  remarkably  fruitful  movement.  In  every  reformatory 
movement  certain  radical  forces  are  released  which  serve  to 
either  drive  the  newly  won  truth  to  wild  extremes,  or,  by  distort- 
ing it  in  various  applications  in  other  and  totally  alien  fields, 
afford  its  enemies  an  opportunity  to  cast  discredit  upon  it,  by 
charging  that  it  is  fraught  with  dangerous  and  disastrous  tend- 
encies. This  soon  began  to  be  the  ill-fortune  of  the  Lutheran 
Reformation,  which  was  forced  to  fight  for  its  life  against  the 
radical  tendencies  both  in  the  Church  and  the  state,  and  which, 
in  turn,  afforded  the  polemicists  of  Rome  their  chance  to  pervert 
the  facts.  They  persistently  refused  to  have  any  regard  for  the 
fundamental    difference   between   Luther's    teachings    about   the 


274         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

Gospel  and  what  it  is,  the  sphere  and  relation  of  the  Church  and 
the  state,  and  the  position  of  those  unregulated  enthusiasts  who 
soon  parted  company  with  the  Reformer,  and  who  antagonized 
him  and  his  teaching  no  less  bitterly  than  did  the  papists  them- 
selves. It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  as  the  Reformation  advanced 
it  caused  more  and  more  of  a  popular  upheaval,  and  a  more  per- 
vasive influence,  that  affected  every  department  of  life.  The 
proclamation  of  the  freedom  of  the  Christian  man,  in  opposition 
to  Rome's  long-time  tyranny  over  the  soul  and  conscience,  not 
being  rightly  apprehended  by  some,  and  in  consequence  misap- 
plied, induced  fanatical  and  impatient  spirits  to  put  the  reforma- 
tory principles  into  practice  in  violent  and  legalistic  ways,  con- 
fusing essentials  with  non-essentials,  turning  the  Gospel  into  a 
species  of  law,  disregarding  weak  consciences  and  employing 
force  to  accomplish  their  ends. 

Luther's  positions  had  been  taken  with  caution  and  were  firmly 
grounded  and  carefully  guarded,  the  distinction  always  being 
made  between  essentials  and  non-essentials,  the  Word  being  in- 1 
voiced  constantly  as  the  only  power  and  authority.  With  the  as- 
surance that  with  that  Word  alone  the  ultimate  result  must  lie, 
time  must  be  allowed  for  some  principles  to  ripen  into  their  legiti- 
mate fruitage,  and  in  the  meantime  love  must  be  exercised  and 
a  tender  regard  maintained  for  weak  consciences.  But  this 
method  of  Luther,  which  trusted  the  truth  to  work  its  own 
changes,  was  too  slow,  too  gradual  and  too  destitute  of  spectacu- 
lar features  to  appeal  to  the  impatient  spirits  of  the  fanatics  who 
endangered  the  good  work  of  reform  by  their  destructive  zeal, 
thereby  turning  a  reformation  into  a  revolution  and  demonstrat- 
ing that  a  beneficent  movement  may  be  undone  by  being  over- 
done, and  that  freedom  is  liable  to  great  abuse  in  a  time  of  change 
when  old  things  are  made  to  pass,  and  when  that  freedom  is 
Umited  to  the  external  phases  of  life. 

The  extent  to  which  some  of  these  abuses  were  carried  will  ap- 
pear in  the  citation  of  a  few  facts  drawn  from  the  delusions  and 
errors  of  the  Anabaptists,  as  well  as  from  the  violent  speech  of 
,-uch  leaders  as  Thomas  Munzer,  who  led  in  a  war  for  com- 
jiunism  of  the  most  immoral  sort,  which  was  ended  by  the  battle 
Df  Frankenhausen  in  1525,  when  Munzer  was  beheaded,  not  as  a 
heretic  but  as  a  rebel.  It  was  his  custom  to  inflame  the  much- 
abused  peasants  by  such  appeals  as  this :    "Thomas  Munzer,  serv- 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  275 

ant  of  God,  against  the  wicked :  Be  pitiless ;  heed  not  the  groans 
of  the  impious;  rouse  up  the  towns  and  villages,  above  all,  the 
miners  of  the  mountains !  On!  On!  while  the  fire  is  burning,  and 
the  hot  sword  reeking  with  slaughter.  Kill  all  the  proud  ones. 
While  they  reign  over  you  it  is  no  use  to  talk  of  God."  Such 
violent  speech,  associated  uniformly  but  unfairly  by  its  enemies 
with  the  Reformation,  greatly  hindered  the  good  work  and  proved 
hurtful  to  all  wholesome  aspects  of  religion.  In  her  delusion 
one  poor  woman,  it  is  related  by  a  contemporary,  at  the  bidding  of 
the  angel  Gabriel,  invited  all  her  neighbors  to  a  feast.  The  table 
was  set  and  the  company  assembled  at  the  appointed  hour,  when 
the  woman  began  to  pray  with  all  her  might,  comforting,  by  turns, 
the  guests,  who  as  yet  saw  no  preparation  for  the  feast,  with  the 
assurance  that  it  was  the  intention  of  the  angels  to  bring  the  food, 
even  as  the  Lord  had  once  miraculously  fed  Israel  with  manna. 
But  the  angelic  provision  came  not,  and  finally,  at  a  late  hour  in 
the  evening,  the  deluded,  hungry  and  at  last  undeceived  neigh- 
bors, left  dejected  and  disappointed,  and  with  hunger  unrelieved. 
The  poor  woman  had  apprehended  the  promise  of  the  Lord  in 
the  most  literal  sense,  when  he  said,  "Ask  and  it  shall  be  given 
unto  you,"  until  at  last  both  she  and  her  guests  found  themselves 
with  wants  unsatisfied  and  the  Scriptures  wrested  to  the  humilia- 
tion and  exasperation  of  both. 

There  were  others  who  took  the  same  literal  signification  to 
"become  like  little  children."  In  order  to  indicate  their  concep- 
tion of  child-likeness  some  of  the  adult  Anabaptists  might  be 
seen  in  the  streets  skipping  about  in  juvenile  fashion  and  clapping 
their  hands,  while  others  would  join  in  a  childish  dance,  or  seating 
themselves  on  the  ground  engage  in  some  game,  or  roll  and 
tumble  with  each  other  in  the  dust  of  the  highway.  Still  others 
played  with  dolls,  or  dragged  fir  cones  that  had  been  strung  to- 
gether on  a  thread  along  the  ground  after  them.  One  of  these 
brethren,  in  his  deluded  effort  at  exemplification  of  the  Lord's 
injunction,  sat  for  a  long  time  on  the  bank  of  the  Rhine,  after 
the  fashion  of  a  little  boy,  building  little  heaps  of  sand,  and  then 
taking  water  from  the  stream  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand  let  it 
trickle  through  the  sand  heaps.  When  asked  for  a  reason  for 
this  queer  conduct  on  the  part  of  a  full-grown  man,  he  replied 
that  he  was  trying  to  obey  his  Saviour's  command  to  become  a 
little  child.     But  this  religious  delusion  expressed  itself  in  ways 


276         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

vastly  more  extravagant  than  these  ludicrous  performances, 
melancholy  as  they  are  when  viewed  as  aspects  of  religious 
extravagance.  It  sometimes  manifested  itself  in  even  dangerous 
forms.  It  assumed  sometimes  an  antinomian  type,  and  there 
were  those  who  concealed  the  basest  sins  of  the  flesh  behind  the 
most  profuse  expressions  of  piety.  But  even  this  was  not  the 
limit  of  this  prodigal  method  of  expressing  religious  devotion. 

The  story  is  told  of  Hans  Schucker,  a  man  of  eighty,  who 
dwelt  with  his  family  in  a  lonely  farmhouse  near  St.  Gall,  in 
Switzerland.  In  this  family  all  manner  of  religious  extravagance 
had  been  talked  and  practiced.  On  the  8th  of  February,  1526, 
one  of  the  younger  brothers  of  the  family,  called  Leonard,  ad- 
dressed Thomas,  an  elder  brother,  thus :  "It  is  the  will  of  our 
Heavenly  Father  that  thou  shouldst  strike  my  head  off."  In  the 
presence  of  the  brothers  and  sisters  of  the  family  Thomas  be- 
sought the  Lord  that  he  might  receive  a  will  for  the  task,  but  was 
not  made  aware  of  any  answer  to  his  prayer.  The  two  brothers 
then  exclaimed  together,  "Thy  will,  O  Father,  be  done."  Leon- 
ard kneeled  down,  when  Thomas  seized  a  sword  and  in  an  instant 
the  head  of  the  murdered  brother  fell  at  his  feet.  After  the 
commission  of  this  horrible  act,  the  fanatical  murderer  took  his 
lute  and  praised  the  Lord  for  the  successful  issue  of  his  work, 
after  which  he  delivered  himself  up  to  a  magistrate,  all  the  time 
obstinately  insisting  that  it  was  not  he,  but  God  through  means  of 
him,  who  had  done  the  foul  deed. 

These  and  other  excesses  followed  when  radicals,  fanatics,  and 
unbalanced  revolutionists,  who  thought  that  Luther  had  stopped 
half  way  and  that  they  must  complete  what  he  had  begun,  took 
me  matter  of  destruction  and  reconstruction  into  their  own  un- 
skilled and  inexperienced  hands.  In  consequence,  order  was  dis- 
placed by  confusion  and  the  Reformation  threatened  with  dis-, 
astrous  failure.  Both  Rome  and  liberalists  have  always  been 
glad  to  enlarge  upon  such  outbursts  of  the  new  Protestant  rad- 
icalism and  set  them  down  to  the  discredit  of  the  new  movement. 
But  the  principles  set  forth  by  Luther  were  not  the  exciting  cause 
of  these  commotions  and  excesses.  It  is  undeniable  that  there  is 
a  large  democratic  element  in  Christianity,  and  much  that  has 
been  falsely  placed  to  the  discredit  of  the  Reformation  is  due 
entirely  to  an  attempt  to  take  that  demorcary  in  too  literal  and 
material  a  sense.     In  times  of  commotion  it  has  alwavs  been 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  277 

difficult  to  draw  the  line  where  disavowal  and  destruction  are  to 
end  and  toleration  and  reconstruction  begin.  But  one  thing  is 
always  to  be  set  down  to  the  credit  of  Luther.  It  is  that  not- 
withstanding his  natural  earnestness  and  vehemence  he  always 
maintained  his  poise  and  balance,  and  was  never  the  man  to  go  to 
aimless  extremes,  always  asserting  the  right  of  Christian  free- 
dom in  matters  non-essential,  and  maintaining  that  one  who 
claimed  to  be  an  inspired  prophet  and  came  with  alleged  revela- 
tions and  inspiration  must  either  be  ordinarily  called  to  account 
by  Church  authority  or  prove  his  divine  commission  by  miracles. 
Radicalism  with  its  unhappy  accompaniments  was  not  of  the 
Reformer,  nor  yet  of  his  principles.  Following  his  career,  we 
discover  not  only  that  it  is  one  of  heroism,  and  one  in  which  step 
after  step  is  taken  with  unhesitating  confidence,  but  a  career,  also, 
in  which  its  conservative  instincts  are  constantly  asserting  their 
power.  The  principles  of  the  new  movement  were  in  no  sense 
responsible,  for  example,  for  the  Peasants'  War.  That  ill-fated 
enterprise  would  have  taken  place  even  if  the  Protestant  doc- 
trines, which  have  been  blamed  for  its  excesses,  had  never  been 
preached  at  all.  It  was  caused  by  age-long  abuses,  for  which  the 
princes  of  Germany,  as  a  consequence  of  their  extortions  and 
tyranny,  were  chiefly  responsible.  The  abuses  brought  about 
under  the  leadership  of  men  like  Munzer,  and  which  were  con- 
temporaneous with  the  Protestant  innovation,  of  course  v/ere  to 
be  deprecated.  But  the  new  principles  are  not  to  be  blamed,  as 
they  have  been  by  papists  and  latitudinarians,  for  the  perversions 
and  reckless  activities  of  lunatics  who  thought  they  heard  in  the 
voice  of  men  of  the  Munzer  order  the  tocsin  calling  them  to 
plunder,  destruction,  lawlessness  and  bloodshed. 

Speaking  of  excesses  in  periods  of  religious  reform  and  revo- 
lution, reminds  us  of  the  fact  that  times  long  after  the  period  of 
the  Reformation  were  not  destitute  of  such  outbursts.  A  hun- 
dred years  and  more  after  that  great  movement  Puritanism  in 
England,  for  example,  as  an  austere  reaction  against  frivolity, 
pushed  Sabbath  keeping  to  its  extreme,  reprobating  even  the  most 
innocent  domestic  recreations  and  changing  a  day  of  rest  and  re- 
freshment into  one  of  alternate  periods  of  abstinence  and  reli- 
gious worship,  with  sermons  three  hours  in  length  and  long  extem- 
porary prayers  measured  by  the  hour  glass  and  fashioned  entirely 
at  the  will  of  the  leader.     Ministers  began  to  teach  that  to  throw 


278         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

a  bowl  on  Sunday  or  to  do  any  servile  work  was  as  great  a  sin  as 
murder;  that  to  make  a  feast  or  dress  a  wedding  dinner  on  that 
day  was  as  bad  as  for  a  father  to  cut  his  child's  throat;  and 
even  that  the  ringing  of  more  bells  than  one  as  a  summons  to 
attend  church  was  "as  great  a  sin  as  might  be." 

A  glance  at  several  selections  from  a  typical  list  of  offences  in 
the  times  of  the  Puritans  will  show  how  varied  were  the  re- 
sponsibilities of  an  officer  of  the  law :  "Robert  Terry  for  pro- 
faning the  Sabbath  day  by  catching  eels" ;  "Richard  Court  for 
coming  irreverently  into  the  church,  never  removing  his  hat  till 
he  cometh  to  this  seat" ;  "Robert  Brown  to  misstepping  up  our 
usual  way  on  going  the  perambulation  of  our  parish" ;  "Thomas 
Giles  for  not  sending  his  servant  to  be  catechized."  The  well- 
known  "Blue  Code"  was  a  satire,  but  there  was  some  basis  of 
fact  in  the  regulations  of  the  times  for  such  a  bit  of  legislation 
as  that  which  forbade  reading  the  common  prayer,  keeping  Chris- 
mas  day  or  saints'  days,  making  mince  pies  or  playing  on  any 
instrument,  except  the  drum,  the  trumpet  or  the  Jew's  harp, 
which  instruments  were  supposed  to  have  something  of  a  biblical 
flavor  about  them.  To  bathe  on  Sunday  was  a  sin,  and  by  some 
was  regarded  as  of  questionable  propriety  at  any  time,  a  boy 
being  reported  once  to  have  been  struck  dead  while  indulging  in 
that  carnal  amusement  on  the  Sabbath.  Every  outward  demon- 
stration of  good  spirits  was  a  sort  of  sin  to  be  as  far  as  possible 
suppressed.  Certain  recreations  were  rigorously  forbidden. 
The  festivities  of  New  Year  and  Shrovetide,  of  May  and 
Michaelmas,  were  looked  upon  as  reprehensible.  The  Christmas, 
Easter  and  Whitsuntide  festivals,  with  other  holy  days,  were 
abolished  by  the  ordinance  of  1647. 

Unreasonable  interferences  with  the  Christian  observances  of 
good  and  devout  people  produced  popular  tumults.  As  an  ex- 
ample, the  mayor  of  Canterbury  insisted  upon  a  market  being 
held  on  Christmas  day,  with  the  result  that  people  who  on  that 
clay  desired  to  attend  divine  worship  in  the  cathedral  were 
roughly  handled.  The  discontent  which  was  thus  produced  burst 
out  in  open  revolt,  and  the  military  was  called  in  to  put  an  end 
to  the  uproar,  in  consequence  of  which  several  people  were  com- 
mitted to  prison. 

In  his  search  for  a  scriptural  warrant  for  things  permitted 
the    Puritan    obtained    some    queer    results.      Ladies    had    their 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  279 

sober  and  stinted  diversions  in  the  parlor  and  the  garden,  and 
gentlemen  had  theirs  at  home  and  in  the  field,  but  all  measured 
out  sparingly  and  by  Scripture  line  and  rule.  The  Word  of  God, 
said  these  stern  Puritan  licensers,  permitted  shooting  according 
to  Samuel  1:18;  musical  concerts,  according  to  Nehemiah  7:67; 
putting  forth  riddles,  according  to  Judges  14:12;  hunting  of  wild 
beasts,  according  to  Canticles  2:15;  searching  out  or  the  contem- 
plation of  the  works  of  God,  according  to  1  Kings  4:33.  The 
Puritan,  too,  played  at  bowls,  billiards  and  shuffleboard,  but 
would  not  touch  cards,  except  to  burn  them. 

In  the  bestowing  of  names  upon  his  children,  he  also  showed 
something  of  an  excess.  "Edification"  was  the  factor  to  be  made 
prominent  in  the  selection  of  names.  Accordingly,  the  Puritan 
parishes  became  full  of  little  Hepzibahs,  Jehoshophats,  Meheta- 
bels  and  Nahums,  to  say  nothing  of  such  compound  titles  as 
"Hold  the  truth,"  "Fight  against  Sin,"  "Know  God,"  "Faint 
Not,"  and  "Be  Faithful,"  together  with  an  extensive  use  of  Chris- 
tian graces  and  theological  terminology,  such  as  "faith,"  "hope," 
"charity,"  "providence,"  "preserved,"  etc. 

In  the  calling  of  harsh  names,  too,  these  Puritan  saints  were 
as  advanced  as  Luther  and  his  contemporaries.  Archbishop  Wil- 
liam Laud  was  especially  hated  by  these  zealots  for  simplicity. 
Laud,  it  must  be  said  in  the  interest  of  veracity,  was  not  the  most 
amiable  of  ecclesiastics,  but  he  hardly  deserved  the  measure  of 
aversion  that  is  indicated  in  the  abusive  and  suggestive  names 
applied  to  him  by  the  Puritans,  among  them  being  such  as  these : 
"arch  piety,"  "arch  wolf,"  "arch  agent  of  the  devil,"  "Beelze- 
bub himself  become  archbishop  and  the  devil's  most  triumphant 
arch  to  adorn  his  Satanic  victories."  In  one  pamphlet  after 
another  this  martinet  of  an  archbishop  was  abused  for  his  birth, 
ridiculed  for  his  size  and  called  in  turn,  as  the  case  seemed  to  the 
Puritan  taste  to  require,  "dirt,"  "filth"  and  "poison." 

It  has  been  affirmed  that  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  animals 
was  not  the  motive  of  the  Puritan  in  his  commendable  efforts  at 
the  abolition  of  the  highly  popular  diversion  of  bear  baiting.  In 
his  essay  on  John  Milton  Macaulay  pays  a  generous  and  deserved 
tribute  to  the  nobler  side  of  Puritanism.  But  in  his  History  of 
England  he  contributes  this  judgment  about  this  aspect  of  Puri- 
tan character:  "The  Puritan  hated  bear  baiting,  not  because  it 
gave  pain  to  the  bear,  but  because  it  gave  pleasure  to  the  specta- 


280         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

tors.  Indeed,  he  generally  contrived  to  employ  the  double  pleas- 
ure of  tormenting  both  spectators  and  bear."  In  his  intolerable 
interference  with  private  and  social  life,  and  his  efforts  at  legis- 
lating uprightness  and  piety  into  people,  willing  or  unwilling, 
the  Puritan  traveled  far,  and  as  was  inevitable  the  time  of  reac- 
tion came  on  apace.  There  was  clearly  a  destitution  of  the  sense 
of  humor  among  a  people  who  could  decree  officially  that  "no 
person  shall  be  employed  but  such  as  the  House  is  satisfied  of  his 
real  goodliness" ;  that  books  in  the  royal  libraries  which  contained 
pictures  of  Jesus  or  Mary  should  be  destroyed  by  burning ;  that 
sculpture  or  graces  should  be  destroyed  or  rechiseled ;  that  public 
amusements  of  all  sorts  should  be  discontinued ;  that  bear  baiting, 
jumping  the  rope,  wrestling  matches,  horse  racing,  stage  acting, 
puppet  shows  and  ball  playing  should  be  counted  as  criminal  of- 
fences and  severely  punished ;  that  sports  on  the  village  green 
should  be  accounted  scandalous  and  every  May  pole  be  hewn 
down;  that  Christmas  should  be  converted  into  a  day  of  fasting 
and  prayer ;  and  that  all  men  should  keep  it,  as  Macaulay  says, 
"in  humbly  bemoaning  the  great  national  sin  which  they  and  their 
fathers  had  so  often  committed  on  that  day  by  romping  under  the 
mistletoe,  eating  boar's  head,  and  drinking  ale  flavored  with 
roasted  apples."  It  was  not  sumptuary  legislation  that  the  Puri- 
tan so  much  indulged  in  as  trying  to  legislate  men  into  piety. 
The  outward  emblems  of  sanctity,  according  to  the  dramatists  of 
the  restoration,  came  to  be  plainness  in  dress,  short  hair,  un- 
starched linen,  pine  benches  and  wooden  bottom  chairs,  a  talking 
through  the  nose,  a  showing  of  the  whites  of  the  eyes,  and  calling 
little  children  by  such  names  as  Assurance,  and  Patience,  and 
Praise  God,  and  Tribulation. 

Luther  has  been  much  reflected  upon  by  writers  of  various 
orders,  and  with  ample  justification,  for  his  use  of  strong  and 
abusive  speech.  But  in  all  fairness  it  may  be  said  that  he  was 
not  more  resourceful  in  this  respect  than  representative  contro- 
versialists in  the  contests  between  the  Calvinists  and  Arminians 
in  England  in  the  eighteenth  century.  That  controversy  is  long 
dead,  but  the  temper  in  which  it  was  conducted  reminds  us  very 
much  of  the  stormy  speech  sometimes  indulged  in  by  Luther  and 
his  papal  contemporaries.  We  are  somewhat  amazed  at  the  spec- 
tacle of  two  deeply  religious  men,  one  of  whom  had  written 
"Rock  of  Ages  Cleft  for  Me,"  a  hymn  which  the  Church  of 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  281 

Christ  will  sing  until  earthly  hymns  are  no  longer  needed,  and 
the  other,  in  himself,  the  greatest  single  evangelizing  force  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  cudgeling  each  other  with  the  temper  and 
language  of  angry  fishwives. 

In  one  of  the  theological  tilts  over  election  and  predestination, 
Toplady  declared  John  Wesley  to  be  guilty  of  "Satanic  shame- 
lessness"  and  accused  him  of  "acting  the  ignoble  part  of  a  lurk- 
ing, sly  assassin,"  of  "uniting  the  sophistry  of  a  Jesuit  with  the 
authority  of  the  pope,"  and  of  sinking  the  discussion  "to  the  level 
of  an  oyster  woman."  Wesley  was  in  turn  called  "a  designing- 
wolf,"  "a  lying  apostle  of  the  foundry,"  "an  old  fox,"  "Pope 
John,"  "little  John,"  "a  dealer  in  stolen  wares,"  "a  gray-headed 
enemy  of  all  righteousness,"  "a  venal  profligate,"  "an  apostate 
miscreant,"  declared  to  be  "holy  and  sly,  one  who  could  pilfer  and 
lie."  In  a  pamphlet  published  in  1749,  entitled  "The  Enthusiasm 
of  Methodists  and  Papists  Compared,"  George  Lavington,  the 
bishop  of  Exeter,  calculated  (if  he  did  not  deliberately  intend) 
to  countenance  the  absurd  calumny  that  Wesley  and  Whitefield 
were  papists  in  disguise.  In  his  reply  Wesley  declined  to  discuss 
further  until  this  Christian  bishop  could  show  at  least  "a  little 
heathen  honesty,"  while  Lavington,  in  a  rejoinder,  which  was  not 
a  reply,  declared  what  his  protagonist  had  said  to  be  "a  medley 
of  chicanery,  sophistry,  prevarication,  evasion,  pertness,  conceit- 
edness,  scurrility,  sauciness  and  effrontery."  In  his  reply  to  this 
Wesley  declared  the  Exeter  bishop,  who  does  seem  to  have  been 
equally  careless  of  both  truth  and  courtesy,  to  have  displayed  the 
"temper  of  a  merry  Andrew,"  while  he  concluded  his  onsets  with 
Toplady  by  declining  "to  have  any  further  controversy  with  a 
chimney-sweep." 

We  have  introduced  these  chapters  from  the  later  history  of 
the  Church  to  show  that  even  extravagance  in  speech  and  custom 
in  the  sphere  of  religious  controversy  were  not  all  terminated  in 
the  era  of  the  Lutheran  movement  in  Germany. 

II 

But  face  to  face  with  discordant  and  depreciating  answers  that 
have  been  given  to  the  question  as  to  the  result  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, such  as  that  given  by  its  pronounced  foes,  that  it  was  "bad 
and  only  bad,"  or  that  of  its  lukewarm  friends,  that  it  was  "dis- 


282         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

appointing,"  or  the  estimate  of  modern  radicals,  that  those  results 
were  "insignificant,"  we  are  warranted  in  giving  some  fair  esti- 
mate of  the  real  life  of  that  movement.  Certain  it  was  that  in 
the  reformed  Germany,  and  the  new-born  Switzerland,  and  in 
Huguenot  France  and  the  heroic  "low  countries,"  a  new  world 
had  arisen.  There  came  to  pass  a  household  purity  that  was 
grave  and  sweet,  an  education  in  university  and  common  school, 
a  social  thrift  and  a  noble  freedom  which  Europe  had  not  hitherto 
known.  Henceforth,  it  was  impossible  for  the  Latin  Church  to 
remain  uninfluenced  and  to  avoid  some  efforts  at  reformation 
and  reconstruction.  Rome,  with  its  imperial  antecedents  and 
traditions  reaching  back  beyond  the  Christian  era,  had  now  at 
last  ceased  to  be  the  sole  mistress  of  the  conscience  of  western 
Christendom,  while  Wittenberg  and  Geneva  had  been  advanced  to 
central  places  in  the  sphere  of  independent  religious  life  and 
thinking.  The  ferment  engendered  in  men's  minds  was  certain 
to  lead  on  to  changes  in  the  ancient  hierarchy  itself,  even  though 
no  one  could  foretell  just  what  or  how  deep  they  might  be. 

Luther  came,  and  Latin  Christianity  found  itself  involved  in  a 
death  struggle  in  which  the  theocracy,  patiently  built  up  through 
the  labor  of  centuries  was  threatened  with  destruction.  Even 
Spain,  in  which  the  Church  and  the  state  were  more  firmly 
united  and  more  solidly  organized  than  elsewhere,  did  not  wholly 
escape  the  infection  of  the  new  views  and  ideals.  The  old 
Church,  still  bitterly  intolerant  of  any  sort  of  heterodoxy,  was 
forced  to  reform  itself  in  head  and  members,  and  at  last  to  throw 
off  her  long-time  indifference  to  laxity  of  morals,  which  had  not 
been  corrected  by  the  invasion  of  the  neopaganism  of  the  Renais- 
sance in  the  center  of  its  power  and  authority  at  Rome.  It  was 
left  to  the  reaction  of  schism,  and  the  rise  of  the  Protestant  com- 
munions in  the  face  of  the  old  Church,  to  bring  to  pass  in  Rome 
itself  that  reform  of  discipline  and  morals  which  three  reforma- 
tory councils  had  found  it  impossible  to  effect.  The  Church  was 
driven  to  a  realization  of  her  danger.  If  it  stood  still  the  Ref- 
ormation would  sweep  it  away.  She  was  forced,  willingly  or  un- 
willingly, as  the  case  may  have  been,  to  impose  a  moral  change 
upon  herself.  She  was  at  least  driven  to  insist  that  never  again 
in  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  should  be  seen  atheists,  men  who  poi- 
soned other  men  to  make  places  of  holy  advancement  for  them- 
selves, thieves,  murderers,  blasphemers,  pirates  and  adulterers, 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  283 

but  men,  who,  if  they  were  sometimes  found,  as  was  to  be  ex- 
pected, considering  the  infirmities  of  human  nature,  incompetent 
to  deal  with  the  perplexing  problems  that  fell  to  their  official 
hands,  were  yet  of  such  personal  uprightness  of  intention  and 
conduct  as  to  command  profound  respect.  Had  the  Lutheran 
movement  produced  no  other  result  than  this,  it  would  have  been 
an  unspeakable  blessing  to  the  world  and  of  incalculable,  though 
unrecognized,  benefit  to  the  hierarchy  itself. 

For  the  purposes  of  reform,  to  which  he  had  been  driven  by 
the  new  spirit  that  had  arisen,  the  pope  accordingly  summoned 
the  Council  of  Trent  in  the  year  1545.  Its  first  sessions  were  -, 
held  in  January,  1546,  and  when  it  closed  in  1563  it  had  estab-(  ( 
lished  the  doctrinal  system  which  still  expresses  the  beliefs  of  the  /  ( 
Roman  Church.  A  definite  bulwark  was  thus  raised  against 
Protestantism,  and  able  scholars  came  to  the  defence  of  the  long, 
massive  line  of  walls  the  old  Church  had  builded  up  for  its  own 
defence.  During  the  three  periods  of  the  council,  extending 
over  eighteen  years,  Catholic  dogma  was  formulated,  under  the 
influence  of  papal  legates,  and  in  the  form  that  maintains  to  this 
day.  Romanism  is  really  of  a  later  date  than  the  Evangelical  doc- 
trinal systems,  having  been  set  forth  expressly  as  a  counter-poise 
to  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed  apprehensions  of  the  Gospel.  In 
that  council,  too,  much  plain  speaking  was  indulged  in  by  some 
from  among  the  more  zealous  of  the  assembled  fathers.  The 
monstrous  declension  of  the  Church,  the  secular  spirit  that  dom- 
inated the  clergy,  the  greed  of  the  Curia,  the  ignorance,  laziness 
and  lewdness  of  the  secular  clergy  and  the  corruption  of  the 
monastic  orders — in  short,  the  degeneracy  and  apostasy  of  the 
official  ranks,  were  by  them  laid  at  the  door  of  the  Church. 

Thus  one  of  the  points  in  the  general  historical  significance 
the  Lutheran  movement  is  to  be  found  in  its  direct  influence  upon 
the  old  Latin  Church  itself.  A  primary  result  of  the  Protestant 
revolt  was  a  reformed  Catholicism,  at  least  in  its  religious  as- 
pects. By  positive  action  or  by  apathy  the  papacy  had  hitherto 
rendered  ineffective  every  effort,  whether  of  individuals  or  of 
councils,  to  correct  even  the  gravest  abuses  that  afflicted  the 
Church.  But  the  great  reform  movement  at  last  forced  the 
big  ecclesiastical  organism  to  take  notice,  and  she  became 
aroused  to  a  realization  of  her  true  position  and  peril,  and  the 
wholesome  results  at  once  became  manifest  in  a  variety  of  ways. 


ion  )  \ 


284         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

In  intellectual  matters,  and  in  its  attitude  toward  scientific  and 
other  forms  of  advancement,  the  Church  made  no  concessions, 
but  stubbornly  decided  to  remain  a  medieval  institution  in  a  mod- 
ern world,  made  so  by  the  new  forces  that  had  entered  in  the 
path  of  the  great  religious  revival.  The  counter-reformation,  ac- 
cordingly, was  not  a  matter  of  intellectual  emancipation  so  much 
as  a  moral  reformation.  That  frivolous  laxity  which  had  vaunted 
itself  in  the  court  of  Leo  X  was  at  an  end.  There  was  a  change 
of  spirit,  which  became  manifest  during  the  pontificates  of  Adrian 
VI,  Clement  VII  and  Paul  III.  Rome  had  been  compelled  to 
listen  to  the  voice  of  Luther  and  to  abandon  much  that  was  a 
depreciation  of  Christ  as  the  Redeemer  and  Saviour  and  Example 
of  mankind.  Certainly  she  had  been  improved  by  her  contact 
with  the  Protestant  forces,  and  now  manifests  a  sincerity  she  did 
not  exhibit  in  the  days  when  Erasmus  uttered  his  pleasantries 
and  Rabelais  laughed  his  scorn  at  money-grasping  pontiffs  and 
indifferent  and  dissolute  priests. 

One  of  the  immediate  results,  therefore,  of  the  work  of  the 
Reformation  was  an  improved  Romanism.  Looking  more  widely 
over  the  field  of  modern  history,  we  can  now  see  that  the  Protes- 
tant revolt  meant  the  introduction  of  a  new  spirit  into  the  world, 
and  the  liberation  of  new  and  transforming  forces,  from  which 
the  papal  system,  with  all  its  self-sufficiency  and  unwarranted 
claims,  could  not  escape  and  by  which  it  was  unconsciously 
effected. 

Turning  our  attention  to  the  results  of  the  Protestant  move- 
ment in  the  sphere  of  the  ethical  life  of  the  people,  we  are  at  once 
confronted  with  the  old  charge  of  the  Romanist  that  the  imme- 
diate effect  was  a  relaxation  of  the  restraints  of  religion  and  a 
consequent  increase  of  immorality.  Indeed,  the  reformers  them- 
selves, who,  no  doubt,  expected  too  much  of  suddenness  and 
thoroughness  in  the  transformation  to  be  wrought,  made  some 
frank  confessions  of  disappointment  and  discouragement  at  the 
moral  outcome  of  some  of  their  work.  "Germany  is,"  as  was  said 
by  Amsdorf,  a  Lutheran  superintendent,  "as  it  were,  drowned  in 
gluttony,  drunkenness,  avarice  and  luxury."  That  the  re- 
action that  came  after  the  preaching  of  the  freedom  of  the  Chris- 
tian man  and  other  fundamental  principles  of  the  new  move- 
ment, produced  some  pernicious  results  was  to  have  been  ex- 
pected.    The  Church  of  Rome  had  endeavored  to  include  in  its 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  285 

scheme  of  religion  the  entire  round  of  a  man's  life,  including 
everything  from  birth  to  death,  in  its  inclusive  grasp,  control  and 
direction.  Men  could  neither  be  born,  baptized,  married,  conduct 
business,  die  or  be  buried  without  the  intrusion  and  control  of  the 
Church.  To  release  men  from  all  this  kind  of  ecclesiastical 
supervision  and  control,  and  call  them  back  into  the  liberty  where- 
with Christ  makes  men  free,  could  not  be  expected  to  be  unat- 
tended with  some  outburst  of  freedom  from  the  law,  that  did 
not  always  express  itself  in  harmony  with  the  highest  ethical 
standards.  Leaven  does  not  all  at  once  permeate  the  mass  into 
which  it  is  introduced,  and  salvation  and  its  fruits  cannot  be 
forced  suddenly  on  men.  That  salvation  is  a  bestowment  from 
above,  but  that  character  which  ensues  is  something  of  a  matter 
of  habit  and  growth.  It  is,  too,  as  unjust  to  cite  instances  of 
coarseness  and  rudeness,  met  with  among  some  Protestant  and 
Romanists  of  that  day,  as  disproving  the  moral  efficacy  of  the 
Reformation,  as  it  would  be  unjust  today  to  allege — as  is  fre- 
quently done — that  the  Church  has  failed  in  its  task  because  ex- 
amples of  downright  heathenism  in  life  are  to  be  found  in  Chris- 
tian lands,  and  even  under  the  shadow  of  great  and  imposing 
churches. 

The  ascetic  life  was  the  highest  ideal  of  Christian  excellence  in 
the  medieval  Church.  But  few,  relatively,  could  live  this  life, 
and  these  were  looked  upon  as  the  highest  and  most  venerated  ex- 
ponents of  Christian  living.  It  was  one  of  the  effects  of  the 
Protestant  movement  to  supplant  this  type  of  religion,  and  to  re- 
instate what  was  more  in  harmony  with  the  New  Testament 
representation  under  our  Lord's  own  figures  of  "the  salt  of  the 
earth"  and  the  "light  of  the  world."  The  new  view  contemplated 
the  Gospel  as  a  renovating  and  purifying  influence  among  men. 
It  stood  for  contact  with  the  world,  and  not  withdrawal  from  the 
world.  The  followers  of  Christ  were  not  to  retreat  from  the  v. 
world,  but  to  transform  it  by  their  presence  and  contact.  The 
kingdom  of  God  on  this  earth  was  not  to  be  made  up  of  ghostly 
coenobites,  who  had  voluntarily  segregated  themselves  from  the 
world  in  order  to  attain  to  holiness,  but  of  men  and  women  not 
indifferent  to  the  labors  and  pleasures  that  legitimately  belong  to 
life,  but  infusing  into  all  things  a  spirit  of  religious  devotion  and 
dedication,  not  only  to  their  Lord,  but  to  the  welfare  of  their 
brethren.     This  ascetic  type  of  religion,  with  its  exploitation  of 


286         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

self-abnegation,  interposes  a  gulf  between  religion  and  the  affairs 
of  the  world,  between  things  natural  and  supernatural.  It  ab- 
jures family  life,  art,  science,  amusement,  trade  and  commerce, 
and  all  things  that  should  experience  a  quickening,  and  at  the 
same  time  elevating,  power  from  contact  with  the  Gospel.  The 
compulsory  rule  of  celibacy  stigmatized  the  divine  institution  of 
marriage,  and  cast  reproach  upon  the  dearest  domestic  relations 
of  fatherhood,  motherhood  and  childhood,  always  looking  upon 
such  relations  as  belonging  to  an  inferior  condition  of  sanctity  and 
religion.  Conscience,  which  is  the  faculty  of  deciding  between 
right  and  wrong,  was  at  that  time  placed  entirely  in  the  keeping 
of  the  priest. 

Now  the  Reformation  reversed  all  this,  and  set  new  estimates 
and  forces  at  work ;  and  in  such  a  period  of  overturning  and  un- 
settlement  moral  relations  sometimes  meet  with  reverses.  It  is 
not  to  be  set  down  to  the  discredit  of  the  newly  introduced  prin- 
ciples that  they  did  not  at  once  overcome  all  moral  abuses,  which 
were  inevitable  when  men  were  once  more  relieved  from  that 
spirit  of  implicit  faith  and  unquestioning  obedience  to  ecclesiasti- 
cal authority  that  was  destructive  of  all  individuality.  The  ad- 
missions of  disappointment  on  the  part  of  some  of  the  reformers 
were  the  confessions  of  men,  for  the  most  part,  who  were  dis- 
heartened because  the  movement  they  had  espoused  did  not  at 
once  effect  sweeping  and  incontrovertible  reforms  in  all  direc- 
tions. It  has  been  said  that  "oftentimes  it  is  the  friends  of  a 
movement  or  an  institution  who  are  its  most  exacting  critics." 
They  expect  more  from  it  than  has  been  accomplished  or  could 
reasonably  have  been  looked  for. 

The  sixteenth  century  was  a  time  in  which  we  might  expect 
an  increase  of  immorality.  In  extirpating  false  ideals  in  religion, 
the  individual  found  himself  in  a  process  of  liberation  from  the 
power  of  those  feudal  and  ecclesiastical  bonds  which  had  been 
so  strong,  but  which  for  generations  had  been  gradually  dimin- 
ishing. The  individual  man  was  in  process  of  emancipation  and 
enlargement,  and  oftentimes  these  made  for  license  as  well  as  lib- 
erty. In  such  a  time  of  revived  individualism  and  spiritual  up- 
heaval, when  human  affairs  are  agitated  by  the  introduction  of 
new  and  tempestuous  forces,  the  pendulum  frequently  swings  to 
the  other  extreme,  loosing  forces  of  lawlessness  and  unrighteous- 
ness, with  the  effect  of  a  relaxation  of  public  morals. 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  287 

After  all  that  may  be  said,  the  question  is  simply  this :  ''When 
the  principles  of  the  Reformation  came  into  active  operation  did 
they  not  exert  a  beneficial  influence  over  morals  ?"  That  they  did 
exert  such  an  influence  is  made  manifest  by  the  history  of  the 
new  principles,  and  by  any  comparison  that  may  be  instituted  be- 
tween countries  dominated  by  those  principles  with  those  dom- 
inated by  the  principles  of  the  old  faith  and  church  order.  The 
religious  and  moral  rejuvenation  of  persons,  as  well  as  of  nations 
and  the  Church,  was  the  real  aim  of  that  movement.  That  this 
design  was  in  great  measure  accomplished  is  abundantly  mani- 
fest in  the  history  of  the  past  four  hundred  years,  during  which 
many  abuses  perilous  to  good  morals  have  been  done  away  with, 
and  many  domestic  and  public  virtues  called  into  being.  Many 
lovely  traits  of  humanity,  much  of  bravery  and  exaltation  of 
mind,  enthusiasm  for  truth  and  right,  have  been  developed  side 
by  side  with  human  passions,  and  in  victory  over  them.  Even 
cloisters  which  have  been  abolished  as  useless  have  been  replaced 
by  beneficent  institutions  and  humane  associations. 

History  verifies  in  a  multitude  of  ways  the  statement  of 
Pfleiderer  in  his  "The  Development  of  Christianity."  In  refer- 
ring to  Luther  he  says :  "But  the  founder  of  the  Protestant  min- 
ister's home,  the  loving  father  of  the  family,  the  host  who  joked 
gaily  with  his  guests,  released  the  Protestant  world  from  the  un- 
naturalness  of  Catholic  monasticism  and  from  ascetic  hatred  of 
the  world.  He  became  the  creator  of  the  Protestant  morality,  in 
that  he  freed  the  temporal,  moral  life  in  family  and  vocation,  in 
state  and  society,  from  the  Catholic  blemish  of  unholiness,  and 
reinstated  them  in  their  dignities  and  rights  as  God  willed.  As 
Goethe  says :  'Through  Luther  we  have  recovered  the  courage 
to  stand  on  God's  earth  with  a  firm  foot  and  to  feel  ourselves 
God-given  human  natures.' ':  Thus  the  Reformation  was  an 
ethical  as  well  as  an  intellectual  revolt  against  medievalism.  It 
rejected  the  moral  ideal  that  had  maintained  for  hundreds  of 
years,  and  set  up  another  in  its  place.  That  ideal  had,  as  we  have 
seen,  been  ascetic.  The  monastic  was  the  highest  expression  of  a 
good  life.  Celibacy  was  more  conducive  to  holiness  than  mar- 
riage, and  virginity  than  chastity.  It  was  a  reversal  of  the  divine 
order  indicated  in  man's  creation  and  nature.  The  road  to  per- 
fection lay  through  a  multitude  of  prescriptions  for  the  subjuga- 
tion of  the  flesh.     Piety  was  to  find  its  expression  in  long  fasts, 


288         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

scourgings,  coarse  and  painful  clothing,  sleeping  on  a  hard  and 
uncomfortable  bed,  and  frequent  prayer  vigils  through  the  hours 
of  the  night.  But  this  expression  of  the  moral  life,  as  we  have 
seen  in  an  earlier  chapter,  had  completely  broken  down.  It  pro- 
duced some  saints  after  that  particular  type  of  saintliness,  but  a 
fearful  mass,  also,  of  deliberate  licentiousness,  appalling  degen- 
eracy and  monastic  scandals  that  were  frequent  and  grievous. 
The  Reformation  inherited  the  sins  of  that  kind  of  an  age!"  It 
arose,  in  part,  out  of  the  dissolution  of  morals  in  which  the 
medieval  type  of  Christianity  had  ended,  and  with  which  it  had 
more  or  less  successfully  to  cope.  As  crowning  all,  it  is  sufficient 
to  say  in  its  behalf  that  the  new  movement  headed  by  Luther 
wrought  a  vast  emancipation  of  the  conscience  from  ecclesiasti- 
cal tyranny,,  not  only,  but  that  it  imparted  an  immense  moral 
energy  to  the  human  mind  throughout  ^he  Europe  of  that  and 
succeeding  times. 

Ill 

The  spiritual  awakening  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  almost 
as  much  a  revival  of  education  as  a  revival  of  religion.  That 
movement  was,  as  we  have  seen,  an  insurrection  against  the  ab- 
solute power  of  the  spiritual  order — a  great  endeavor  to  liberate 
the  human  understanding,  and  a  vast  effort  in  behalf  of  freedom 
for  the  human  mind.  Accordingly,  we  discover  in  this  move- 
ment almost  as  much  of  an  upheaval  in  the  sphere  of  the  intellect 
as  in  that  of  the  spirit.  Prior  to  the  fifteenth  and  the  early 
sixteenth  century  most  of  the  education  was  abstract  and  theo- 
retical. It  was,  for  the  most  part,  a  work  of  memory  and  the 
dogmatic  disputation  of  ancient  texts,  with  Aristotle  as  the  chief 
master  and  great  authority.  Before  the  invention  of  printing 
books  were  few  in  number,  and  what  there  were,  were  largely  in 
the  hands  of  the  clergy.  Latin  was  the  language  of  the  Church, 
as  it  is  yet  today,  and  also  the  language  of  most  of  the  books, 
which  were  in  consequence  unintelligible  to  the  mass   of  men. 

■  For  this  reason  education  was  religious  rather  than  secular,  the 
pupils,  for  the  most  part,  being  those  who  were  in  preparation 

i  for  the  priesthood.  The  emphasis  in  the  beliefs  of  the  age  was 
disproportionate,  being  placed  upon  things  supernatural  rather 
than  upon  things  natural,  on  theology  rather  than  on  science,  to- 
ward which  there  was  a  pronounced  spirit  of  hostility.     Truth 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  289 

was  to  be  accepted  on  the  authority  of  the  Church,  rather  than 
as  the  result  of  individual  research.  It  was  a  period  of  intel- 
lectual stagnation,  during  which  learning  was  neglected. 

Of  course,  the  Renaissance — the  arousing  of  Christendom  by 
means  of  the  revival  of  Greek  learning  after  the  fall  of  Constan- 
tinople— did  much  to  quicken  intellectual  activity,  which  was 
helped,  also,  by  that  group  of  significant  events — the  discovery  of 
America,  the  astronomical  discoveries  of  Copernicus  and  the  in- 
vention of  printing.  There  had  come,  along  with  the  Reforma- 
tion in  religion,  a  general  atmosphere  favoring  the  right  of  the 
individual  to  think  and  speak  for  himself,  and  a  consequent 
quickening  of  intellectual  activity  and  education.  From  the  very 
beginning  the  spirit  of  Protestantism  favored  universal  educa- 
tion. It  was  a  necessity  created  by  the  new  principles.  If  the 
right  of  private  judgment  is  guaranteed,  and  the  lay  Christian  is 
to  read  and  interpret  the  Scriptures  and  to  take  part  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  affairs  of  the  Church,  he  dare  not,  for  the 
sake  of  his  own  soul  and  the  great  interests  involved,  remain  an 
illiterate  blockhead.  Knowledge,  intellectual  balance  and  en- 
lightenment are  necessary  adjuncts  of  the  Protestant  system, 
and  soon  after  the  inauguration  of  Luther's  work,  accordingly, 
emphasis  was  placed  upon  the  various  aspects  of  the  training  of 
childhood.  The  weight  of  personal  responsibility  for  the  culture 
of  his  own  intellectual  and  spiritual  nature,  which  Protestantism 
in  a  large  sense  imposes  upon  each  individual,  makes  the  training 
of  the  mind  something  of  a  matter  of  universal  concern.  This  is 
no  doubt  one  of  the  underlying  reasons  why  in  Protestant,  as 
contrasted  with  Roman  Catholic  countries,  so  much  more  has 
been  done  for  the  popular  instruction  of  all  the  people. 

And  more  than  this,  the  free  circulation  and  popular  use  of  the 
Bible  in  the  language  of  the  people,  which  is  a  feature  of  the  re- 
ligious and  intellectual  life  of  Protestant  lands,  has  proved  to  be 
an  instrument  of  intellectual  as  well  as  religious  improvement, 
producing  effects  which  have  been  of  immeasurable  value.  The 
popular  use  of  the  sacred  Scriptures  has  always  exerted  an  in- 
fluence on  the  popular  mind  and  heart  and  conscience  which  it 
would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate.  Aside  from  its  use  as  the  only 
infallible  rule  of  faith  and  practice,  and  as  man's  guide  to  heaven, 
the  study  of  its  biography,  history,  poetry,  ethics  and  as  a  rule  of 
faith,  has  afforded  a  mental  discipline  of  a  high  order.     It  has 


290         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

stimulated  that  breadth  and  refinement  of  intellect  found  in  no 
land  untouched  by  its  influence,  and  which  no  agency  ever  yet 
employed  by  the  Church  of  Rome  has  been  able  to  produce.  It 
is  one  of  the  most  gratifying  and  striking  results  of  the  Lutheran 
movement  of  the  sixteenth  century  that  the  same  influences 
which  promoted  so  much  the  growth  of  national  language  and 
literature,  also  did  so  much  to  open  the  gates  of  knowledge  to  the 
people  by  fostering  education  and  schools.  In  Italy  and  the  rest 
of  the  south  of  Europe  the  influence  of  the  Renaissance  was 
aristocratic  and  aesthetic,  the  prestige  of  the  Hellenic  ideas  hav- 
ing an  almost  heathenizing  effect  on  the  Church.  Among  the 
Teutonic  peoples  of  the  north  it  was  different,  the  reaction  as- 
suming a  democratic  type,  the  people  crying  out  against  the 
profligacy  of  the  priests  and  the  abuses  of  the  Church,  the  revival 
of  learning  at  once  forming  an  alliance  with  the  reformation  of 
religion. 

The  Bible  having  been  made  accessible  to  the  people  in  both 
theory  and  in  fact  by  means  of  Luther's  principles  and  transla- 
tion, the  next  problem  was  that  of  instructing  them  so  that  they 
might  be  able  to  understand  it;  and  accordingly  Luther's 
thoughts  were  promptly  turned  toward  education  and  its  relation 
to  state  as  well  as  Church.  The  platform  of  education  which  he 
formulated  was  one  of  the  very  first  of  the  new  era.  The  plan 
reflected  some  of  the  limitations  of  the  age,  but  was  far  in  ad- 
vance of  anything  contemporary.  In  this  matter,  as  in  others, 
Luther  became  the  master  spirit  at  Wittenberg,  and  with  him 
Melanchthon  was  in  full  accord.  The  chief  of  the  reformers 
has  been  rightly  regarded  as  "the  father  and  founder  of  popular 
education."  He  himself  declared  that  if  he  were  not  a  preacher 
he  would  choose  to  be  a  schoolmaster,  and  to  him,  at  least  in 
part,  the  noble  calling  of  the  teacher  owes  the  dignity  which  be-, 
longs  to  it  and  the  exalted  estimate  placed  upon  it.  His  appeal 
for  the  establishment  of  schools  has  been  pronounced  "the  most 
important  educational  treatise  ever  written."  In  1524  he  wrote 
his  address  to  the  aldermen  of  all  the  German  cities  in  behalf  of 
Christian  schools.  He  declares  that  "for  the  maintenance  of 
civil  order  and  the  proper  regulation  of  the  home,  society  needs 
accomplished  and  well-trained  men  and  women.  Such  men  are 
to  come  from  boys  and  such  women  from  girls."  He  lays  great 
stress  on  the  languages,  calling  them  "the  scabbard  in  which  the 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  291 

Word  of  God  is  sheathed,  the  casket  in  which  this  jewel  is  en- 
shrined, the  cask  in  which  this  wine  is  kept,  the  chamber  in 
which  this  food  is  stored."  One  of  the  first  results  of  Luther's 
visitation  of  the  churches  was  the  founding  of  something  like  a 
universal  common  school  system  for  all  Germany.  The  educa- 
tion of  boys  and  girls — not  merely  those  from  the  upper  and 
burgher  classes,  but  of  the  whole  people — was  an  end  for  which 
he  untiringly  strived.  His  primary  concern  was  for  the  spiritual 
emancipation  of  his  countrymen,  but  he  at  once  discerns  that  for 
the  spread,  acceptance  and  permanent  influence  of  the  new  views 
the)r  must  be  proclaimed  and  defended  by  Gospel  preachers  and 
enlightened  and  godly  rulers.  These,  he  saw,  could  never  be 
secured  without  the  aid  of  schools,  and  for  their  acceptance  and 
practice  among  the  common  people  educational  uplift  was  an  es- 
sential factor.  In  his  appeal  of  1520  to  the  "German  nobility," 
he  proposed  that  a  number  of  the  useless  convents  be  restored 
to  their  primary  use,  which  was  the  education  of  boys  and  girls. 
His  correspondence  is  full  of  the  expressed  desire  to  see  good 
and  sound  education  spreading  throughout  Germany.  "Remem- 
ber," says  he,  in  one  of  his  striking  epigrams,  "the  devil  much 
prefers  blockheads  and  drones."  He  pleaded  with  all  the  earnest- 
ness of  a  Christian  and  patriot  for  a  minimum  of  education  for 
every  child,  and  showed,  also,  how  good  high  schools  for  girls  as 
well  as  boys  can  be  established  by  using  many  needless  ecclesias- 
tical foundations  for  that  purpose. 

Much  that  he  said  on  this  subject  has  a  modern  tone  in  it,  and 
is  an  anticipation  of  much  that  now  maintains.  He  believed  that 
the  state  should  not  only  support  and  control  the  school  system, 
but  that  it  should  likewise  make  attendance  at  such  schools  com- 
pulsory. "In  my  judgment,"  says  he,  "there  is  no  outward  of- 
fense that  in  the  sight  of  God  so  heavily  burdens  the  world  and 
deserves  such  heavy  chastisement  as  the  neglect  to  educate  chil- 
dren. *  *  *  Your  children  are  not  so  entirely  your  own 
that  you  can  withhold  them  from  God.  He  will  have  justice, 
and  they  are  more  His  than  yours.  For  the  sake  of  the  Church 
we  must  have  and  maintain  Christian  schools.  Young  pupils  and 
students  are  the  seed  and  source  of  the  Church.  When  schools 
prosper  the  Church  remains  righteous  and  her  doctrine  pure. 
There  is  nothing  more  necessary  than  to  educate  men  who  are  to 
succeed  us  and  govern.     If  we  were  dead,  whence  should  come 


292         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

our  successors,  if  not  from  the  school?"  "I  maintain  that  civil 
authorities  are  under  obligation  to  compel  the  people  to  send 
their  children  to  school."  "Wherever  the  Government  sees  a 
promising  boy,  let  him  be  sent  to  school.  If  the  father  is  poor, 
let  the  child  be  aided  with  the  property  of  the  Church.  The  rich 
should  make  bequests  to  such  objects."  "The  welfare  of  a  city 
does  not  consist  alone  in  great  treasures,  firm  walls,  beautiful 
houses  and  abundant  munitions  of  war;  indeed,  where  all  these 
are  found,  and  reckless  fools  come  into  power,  the  city  sustains 
the  greatest  injury.  But  the  highest  welfare,  safety  and  honor 
of  a  city  consists  in  able,  learned,  wise  and  cultivated  citizens  who 
can  secure,  preserve  and  utilize  every  treasure  and  advantage." 
Melanchthon  was  accustomed  to  say,  "every  good  theologian  and 
interpreter  of  the  heavenly  doctrine  must  be  first  a  linguist,  then 
a  dialectician  and  finally  a  witness." 

In  harmony  with  such  educational  views,  Protestantism  created 
new  universities  and  reorganized  old  ones,  so  that  the  present 
state  of  higher  education  as  well  as  that  of  the  more  popular 
order  is  due  to  the  Protestant  spirit.  "Protestant  Germany,"  it 
has  been  truly  said,  "is  still  building  on  the  educational  founda- 
tions laid  by  Melanchthon  more  than  three  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago,"  while  there  is  much  in  the  spirit  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  that  adds  force  to  a  declaration  of  Treitschke,  made  upon 
the  basis  of  his  own  personal  experience  at  the  University  of 
Freiburg:  "It  is  impossible  to  speak  of  academic  liberty  in  an 
institution  controlled  by  the  Roman  Church."  That  Church  in- 
sists, by  means  of  the  confessional,  on  superintending  the  lives 
and  secrets  of  all  ranks  and  conditions  of  men,  women  and 
children.  With  a  similar  educational  comprehension  she  insists 
on  educating  the  young  and  the  old,  and  that  training  of  the  mind, 
in  its  primary,  intermediate  and  higher  departments,  must  all  be 
committed  to  the  recognized  officials  of  the  Church.  The  theo- 
logical and  pedagogical  conceptions  of  Rome  are  not  conducive  to 
the  free  investigation  of  truth  for  its  own  sake  and  on  the  as- 
sumption that  truth  is  one,  and  that  all  truth  is  catholic  and 
should  be  sought  after  for  itself  alone. 

The  other  reformers,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  exerted  them- 
selves in  behalf  of  the  schools  as  nurseries  of  religion  and  virtue, 
realizing,  as  they  seemed  to  do.  that  a  real  and  permanent  reform 
must  spring  from  the  people.     Zwingli,  Calvin  and  Knox,  in  their 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  293 

respective  countries,  had  an  interest  in  the  schools  equaled  only 
by  their  interest  in  religion.  These  men,  with  the  Wittenberg 
reformers,  anticipated  by  the  space  of  three  hundred  years  our 
modern  law  of  compulsory  school  attendance,  their  teaching,  too, 
clearly  favoring  a  gradual  emancipation  of  secular  education, 
especially  in  the  higher  schools,  from  too  much  sectarian  con- 
trol. Thus  it  is  obvious  that  the  best  educational  influences  and 
systems  and  all  the  provisions  for  intellectual  culture  among  the 
most  enlightened  peoples  of  the  earth  were  created  by  the  men 
raised  up  of  God  as  the  leaders  in  the  great  Reformation  move- 
ment. In  forceful  language  the  ex-president  of  Harvard  Uni- 
versity writes  of  the  origin  of  that  intellectual  freedom  mani- 
fested (sometimes  in  exaggerated  forms,  it  must  be  said)  in 
that  land  in  which  the  Reformation  had  its  origin.  "No  think- 
ing," says  he,  "has  been  so  wide,  so  deep,  so  unfettered,  so  free 
as  German  thinking.  Two  great  doctrines  which  had  sprung 
from  the  German  Protestant  Reformation  had  been  developed  by 
Germans  from  seed  they  planted  in  Germany.  The  first  was  the 
doctrine  of  universal  education,  developed  from  the  Protestant 
conception  of  individual  responsibility;  and  the  second  was  the 
^reat  doctrine  of  civil  liberty — liberty  in  industries,  in  society,  in 
government,  liberty  with  order,  under  law.  This  academic  free- 
dom meant  to  the  Germans  emancipation  from  tradition  and  prej- 
udice as  well  as  from  authority,  whether  governmental  or  eccles- 
iastical. The  Teutonic  peoples  set  higher  value  on  truth  in 
speech,  thought  and  action  than  any  other  people.  They  love 
truth;  they  seek  it;  they  woo  it.  America  is  more  indebted  to 
Germany  than  to  any  other  nation,  because  the  range  of  German 
research  has  been  wider  than  any  other  nation." 

Thus,  again,  do  we  see  that  the  Lutheran  movement  was  not 
only  an  uprising  of  religious  convictions,  a  demand  that  each  man 
should  himself  look  up  to  the  eternal,  realizing  his  personal  re- 
sponsibility and  claiming  without  intervention  the  divine  for- 
giveness and  grace,  but  it  was  also  the  beginning  of  a  great  era 
of  popular  enlightenment.  The  Renaissance  was  intellectual  and 
artistic,  a  means  of  culture  for  but  the  few;  the  Reformation 
was  religious  and  popular  in  all  of  its  aspects  and  worked  out 
results.  When  Luther  gave  the  Bible  to  the  people  in  their  own 
language  along  with  the  principles  of  the  new  movement  which 
he  had  inaugurated,  and  demanded  that  every  man  should  have 


294    LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

the  faculty  of  reading  them  given  to  him,  he  awoke  a  thirst  for 
knowledge  in  the  people  which  very  soon  took  shape  in  the  form 
of  popular  education  and  popular  power.  In  the  Middle  Ages 
the  ecclesiastical  schools  were  designed  chiefly  for  candidates  for 
the  priesthood.  The  parochial  schools  were  intended  to  fit  the 
young  for  Church  membership.  The  burgher  schools  were  in- 
tended for  the  artisan  and  commercial  classes  of  the  cities,  while 
knightly  education  was  training  for  chivalry.  Thus  the  laboring 
and  poorer  classes  of  the  people  were  left  to  toil  on  in  ignorance 
and  want,  remaining  always  in  a  dependent  and  servile  condition, 
their  lives  being  unillumined  and  uncompensated  by  any  kind  of 
intellectual  pleasures.  But  the  Reformation  swept  away  many 
of  the  pedagogical  follies  of  the  monks,  the  unreal  philosophy  of 
education,  and  the  sophistries  prevalent  on  this  as  on  other  sub- 
jects. Erasmus  laughed  to  scorn  the  absurdities  which  had  been 
provided  as  the  mental  aliment  of  the  preceding  centuries.  But 
the  darkness  passed  away,  not  so  much  because  men  mocked  at 
the  darkness,  but  because  a  real  and  true  light  had  arisen  to  dispel 
that  darkness  with  the  true  and  inexhaustible  "Light  of  the 
World." 

Thus  in  the  important  sphere  of  education  has  the  Reformation 
in  religion  shown  itself  to  be  of  immense  value  to  human  prog- 
ress, breaking  the  fetters  of  the  past  and  giving  the  course  of 
human  development  a  new  direction.  Well  might  our  great  his- 
torian Bancroft  say  in  words  that  have  been  oft  quoted,  "We 
boast  of  our  common  schools.  Calvin  was  the  father  of  popular 
education,  the  inventor  of  the  free  system  of  schools."  What 
was  true  of  Calvin  was  even  in  a  larger  sense  true  of  Luther, 
for  Calvin  was  but  eight  years  of  age  when  Luther  nailed  up  his 
theses,  and  the  great  Genevan  reformer  and  systematizer  con- 
stantly in  his  career  expressed  his  indebtedness  to  and  depend- 
ence on  the  more  popular  leader  at  Wittenberg. 

IV 

The  pulpit  has  been  not  only  the  chief  instrument  in  the  spread 
of  the  message  of  salvation,  but  a  great  factor  in  civilization.  It 
has  exercised  in  the  past  and  still  continues  to  exercise,  after  all 
deductions  have  been  made,  a  wide  influence  not  only  upon  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  countless  individuals,  but  also  upon  social, 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  295 

civil  and  industrial  life  as  well.  Preaching  is  one  of  the  forces 
which  has  contributed  much  to  the  building  of  nations  and  the 
culture  of  great  and  influential  peoples. 

One  of  the  most  valuable  results  of  the  Reformation  was  its 
influence  on  this  important  factor  in  the  life  of  the  Church  and 
the  revival  of  apostolic  Christianity.  To  this  feature  of  the  new 
movement,  more,  perhaps,  than  to  any  other,  did  it  owe  its 
strength  and  influence.  By  means  of  preaching  Luther  and  his 
contemporaries  instructed,  persuaded  and  fired  the  people  with 
enthusiasm  for  pure  religion  and  aroused  them  to  revolt  against 
the  abuses  of  the  Church,  and  by  means  of  the  same  agency  ani- 
mated them  in  their  break  from  the  domination  of  Rome. 

During  the  medieval  period  there  was  not  such  a  dearth  of 
preaching  as  has  been  sometimes  represented  by  writers  not 
always  fair  minded  in  estimating  the  value  of  all  the  forces  at 
work  in  that  era.  Yet  good  preachers,  even  when  most  numer- 
ous in  that  age,  were  the  exceptions  to  the  rule.  In  general  the 
clergy  did  not  preach.  In  the  darkest  hour  of  that  time  there 
had  never  entirely  failed  men  who  had  the  gifts  to  preach  and 
fidelity  in  the  use  of  their  gifts,  but  the  Reformation  brought 
with  it  as  one  of  its  adjuncts,  formidable  and  popular,  a  great 
outburst  of  preaching  such  as  had  not  been  since  the  close  of  the 
apostolic  age  of  the  Church.  During  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries  the  pulpit  of  the  Latin  Church  may  be  accurately  de- 
scribed as  having  passed  into  such  a  state  of  decadence  that 
preaching  as  a  Church  institution  and  agency  had  almost  become 
non-existent.  The  forces  of  decline  were,  for  the  most  part,  in 
the  ascendant.  Toward  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century  the 
great  representatives  of  the  scholastic  type  of  preaching  had 
passed  away.  They  were  succeeded  by  a  class  of  imitators  who 
made  the  use  of  that  method  ridiculous.  Of  their  work  it  has 
been  said:  "The  wearisome  divisions,  the  tedious  refinements, 
the  useless  distinctions  and  vapid  subtleties  made  up  only  a  gal- 
vanized corpse,  or  a  dancing  skeleton  as  in  some  puppet  show, 
instead  of  a  live  and  vigorous  body."  It  may  be  recalled  that  in 
his  "Praise  of  Folly"  Erasmus  satirizes  this  style  of  preaching 
and  illustrates  the  degeneracy  with  which  it  had  been  smitten. 
He  tells  how  that,  in  the  first  place,  the  preacher  would  begin  with 
an  invocation  borrowed  from  the  poets,  then  would  have  an  ex- 
ordium of  some  far-fetched  and  extravagant  nature  drawn  froir 


296         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

the  River  Nile,  or  Bel  and  the  dragon,  or  signs  of  the  zodiac,  or 
squaring  the  circle,  or  from  the  elements  of  grammar,  or  forced 
etymologies  and  the  forms  of  words,  all  artificial  and  pedantic  to 
a  high  degree.  The  third  stage  would  be  that,  which,  in  the  old 
rhetoric  was  called  "narration,"  or  the  "statement  of  the  case," 
and  here  the  text  of  Scripture  would  be  given  or  slightly  alluded 
to.  The  fourth  part — the  main  part  of  the  discourse — would  in- 
troduce almost  a  new  person,  for  here  our  scholastic  becomes  a 
mighty  theologian  and  propounds  the  most  wonderful  theological 
subtleties,  touching  on  things  found  in  neither  heaven  nor  earth, 
and  to  tickle  the  ears  of  the  hearers,  would  adduce  the  great  doc- 
tors, the  "subtle,"  the  "irrefragable,"  the  "seraphic"  and  the  like ; 
and  then  would  come  syllogisms  and  corollaries  and  all  sorts  of 
scholastic  fooleries.  Finally,  there  would  be  the  fifth  act,  in 
which  the  preachers  show  the  greatest  art  by  bringing  as  applica- 
tion and  illustration  some  fable  or  legend — the  more  marvelous 
and  absurd  the  better — which  they  proceed  to  interpret  "alle- 
gorically,  tropologically  and  anagogically."  This  caustic  descrip- 
tion of  Erasmus  is  not  overdone  in  its  portrayal  of  a  time  when 
ardent  logicians  went  to  absurd  lengths  in  hair-splitting  and  friv- 
olous disputation. 

Throughout  the  whole  of  the  medieval  period  there  are  many 
indications  that  preaching  had  declined  to  the  level  of  the  burles- 
que, the  sensational  and  the  pedantic.     It  is  incredible  what  irrever- 
ence, absurdity  and  even  indecency  were  perpetrated  in  the  name 
of  the  pulpit.     "Even  some  of  the  better  preachers,"  it  has  been 
said,  "men  with  really  serious  aims  and  personally  of  excellent 
character,  were  not  free  from  such  faults,  and  in  the  hands  of 
less  able  and  serious  men,  it  became  a  shame  and  a  disgrace, 
which  no  amount  of  special  pleading  can  justify,  and  the  bad 
taste  of  the  age  can  only  palliate."     Much  of  the  preaching  was 
of   the   grotesque   and   pedantic    order.     In   an    Easter   sermon 
Gabriel  Barletta,  by  far  the  most  famous  Italian  preacher  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  next  to  Savonarola,  of  whom  it  was  said,  "if 
one  doesn't  know  how  to  preach  like  Barletta  he  doesn't  know 
how  to  preach  at  all,"  discoursed  thus :   "After  His  resurrection 
the  Lord  was  looking  for  a  messenger  to  carry  the  good  news 
to  His  mother.    A  number  offered  themselves.    Adam  said  let  me 
go,  because  I  was  the  cause  of  evil.     No,  you  won't  do  because 
you  are  too  fond  of  figs  and  might  stop  in  the  road.    Abel  said, 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  297 

let  me  go.  No,  you  might  meet  Cain,  and  he  would  kill  you. 
Then  Noah  would  undertake  the  business.  No,  you  drink  too 
freely.  John  the  Baptist  couldn't  go  because  he  wore  hairy 
clothes,  and  the  penitent  robber  was  rejected  because  his  legs  were 
broken,  and  more  of  the  same  order.  In  one  of  his  sermons  this 
same  famous  preacher  tells  this  story:  "A  certain  priest  in  cele- 
brating the  mass  observed  a  woman  who  freely  wept  and  seemed 
much  moved  as  he  intoned  the  service.  The  service  being  ended, 
the  priest  asked  the  woman  the  cause  of  her  emotion,  when  she 
told  him  that  it  was  his  voice,  which  reminded  her  so  tenderly  of 
her  recently  deceased  donkey."  That  a  man  of  real  talent,  and 
usually  a  man  of  serious  aims,  should  have  indulged  in  such 
trifling  and  irreverence  is  a  fair  indication  of  the  stage  of  de- 
generacy reached  by  preaching  for  a  long  period  in  the  history  of 
the  pulpit.  Of  the  orderly  explanation  and  enforcement  of  the 
Word  of  God  there  was  none  in  this  kind  of  homiletic  trifling  and 
pedantry.  Even  in  the  sermons  of  a  man  like  Gregory  the  Great, 
who  attached  much  importance  to  preaching,  and  left  a  book  on 
the  subject,  may  be  encountered  exegesis  of  the  most  extravagant 
order.  He  sometimes  found  not  merely  three,  but  as  many  as 
seven  senses  in  the  same  text  of  Scripture — senses  historical, 
moral,  spiritual,  mystical,  analogic,  anagogic,  and  so  on  through 
the  various  orders  of  meaning.  He  dealt,  too,  with  such  ques- 
tions as  why  the  angel  at  the  grave  of  Christ  sat  on  the  right 
hand  instead  of  the  left,  and  what  was  the  significance  of  the 
one  hundred  and  fifty-three  fishes  caught  by  Peter.  This  was 
the  period,  too,  when  all  sorts  of  homiletical  helps  abounded. 
Much  predigested  food  of  this  order  was  provided  for  customers 
then,  as  there  are  customers  now,  for  that  kind  of  goods.  The 
vast  apparatus  of  this  species  that  was  constructed  in  that  period 
in  the  history  of  the  puplit  is  another  evidence  of  the  prostration 
of  the  work  of  preaching,  and  of  the  absence  of  concern  on  the 
part  of  the  Church  to  remedy  the  fault.  Such  brain-saving  de- 
vices were  plentiful,  some  of  the  more  serious  of  which  might 
have  been  legitimate  and  useful  if  wisely  used,  and  when  they 
were  not  perverted  into  snares  for  the  weak  and  temptation  to  the 
lazy.  The  happy,  and  certainly  enticing,  title  to  such  as  were 
attracted  to  that  class  of  wares,  of  one  such  contribution  to 
homiletical  literature  was  this — "Sleep  Well  Sermons."  In  a 
brief  introduction,  suggestive  of  mental  tranquillity,  this  is  said : 


298         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

"Here,  happily,  begin  the  Sunday  sermons  with  expositions  of 
the  Gospels  through  this  year,  quite  well  known  and  useful  to  all 
priests,  pastors  and  chaplains,  which  are  also  called  by  the  other 
title  of  Sleep  Well,  or,  Sleep  Without  Care,  for  this  reason,  that 
without  much  study  they  may  be  appropriated  and  preached  to 
the  people."  One  outline  will  serve  as  a  specimen  of  the  skill 
displayed  by  the  benevolently  disposed  author  of  the  sleep  easy 
method  of  help  for  the  hard  pressed  homiletician.  The  text  is 
Mark  6:48,  "The  wind  was  contrary  to  them,"  and  this  is  the  plan 
of  treatment:  "There  are  four  spiritual  winds  which  are  con- 
trary to  us  and  move  on  the  sea  of  this  world:  (1)  the  east  wind 
blows  when  a  man  reflects  on  the  sorrowful  condition  in  which 
he  entered  this  world;  (2)  the  west  wind  blows  when  he  reflects 
on  bitter  death;  (3)  the  south  wind,  when  he  thinks  of  eternity; 
(4)  the  north  wind,  when  he  thinks  of  the  terrors  of  the  last 
judgment." 

Such  was  the  character  of  most  of  the  preaching  in  a  period 
when  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  had  become  corrupted,  when 
the  interpretation  of  the  Word  of  God  had  become  strained,  alle- 
gorically  and  otherwise  bad;  a  time  when  ecclesiastical  legends 
and  tales  abounded  in  great  variety,  and  pedantic  and  scholastic 
excesses  and  ludicrous  refinements  were  widely  prevalent.  If 
men  were  to  be  saved  by  the  foolishness  of  preaching  a  new 
note  must  once  more  be  heard  and  all  this  reversed,  and  that  de- 
mand for  preaching  that  had  all  along  come  from  the  people 
rather  than  the  Church  must  once  more  be  heeded. 

Sacerdotalism  is  not  conducive  to  good  preaching.  The  medi- 
eval Church  had  thrust  the  sacraments,  with  the  theory  of  their 
mechanical  efficacy,  into  the  foreground  and  relegated  preaching 
to  the  friars.  Even  most  of  the  popes  reserved  themselves  for 
official  benedictions  and  sacramental  grace.  For  centuries  before 
the  Reformation  this  priestly  conception  of  the  ministry  was  in 
the  ascendant  and  preaching  in  a  state  of  decline.  To  save  men 
by  the  externalism  of  the  one  was  much  easier  than  to  bring  the 
appeal  of  the  Gospel  to  the  understanding,  hearts  and  consciences 
of  men  by  means  of  the  preached  Word.  It  is  an  easy  thing  to 
make  a  priest,  but  a  prophet  is  sent  of  God.  From  its  very  be- 
ginning, and  in  harmony  with  its  genius,  Protestantism  has  been 
a  preaching  religion,  and  during  its  entire  history,  and  in  har- 
mony with  its  genius,  it  has  assembled  the -people  together  to 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  299 

hear  the  Word  rightly  preached  and  to  properly  observe  the  sac- 
raments. From  its  beginnings  in  the  earth  the  open  Bible  has 
been  its  textbook,  while  its  saving  facts  and  doctrine  of  redemp- 
tion have  been  pressed  home  upon  the  people  by  men  called  of 
God  and  set  apart  by  the  laying  on  of  hands,  and  always  with 
salutary  and  uplifting  influences.  One  of  the  finest  results  of  the 
Reformation  was  the  re-instatement  of  preaching.  It  was  at 
once  a  revival  of  biblical  preaching,  as  contrasted  with  the  re- 
cital of  fabulous  stories  about  saints  and  martyrs ;  of  contro- 
versial preaching  directed  against  the  sinuous  errors  and  prac- 
tical evils  of  the  times;  and  of  the  joyous  proclamation  of  the 
doctrines  of  divine  grace  and  justification  by  faith  alone.  "The 
resolution  then  accomplished  in  the  cultus  was  deeper  and  more 
extensive  than  any  changes  in  organization,"  says  Prof.  Allen  in 
"Christian  Institutions."  "The  accretions  of  religious  symbolism 
from  the  fifth  century,  together  with  the  philosophy  which  in- 
spired them,  had  lost  their  meaning  and  their  attraction." 

From  the  beginning  of  his  reformatory  work  Luther  displayed 
his  rare  gifts  as  a  preacher,  and  to  the  prosecution  of  that  work 
he  brought  a  tireless  devotion  and  diligence.  In  the  history  of 
the  Christian  pulpit  the  chief  of  the  reformers  has  always  been 
assigned  by  unbiased  judgment  the  place  of  a  primate.  As  a 
preacher  he  stands  in  the  front  rank  of  those,  who,  by  means  of 
the  ministry  of  God's  Word,  have  moulded  the  characters  and 
destinies  of  men.  Among  all  his  other  duties  and  achievements 
as  a  scholar,  theologian,  a  writer  and  an  unfaltering  leader,  he 
was  first  of  all  and  chiefly  a  great  preacher,  who  created  in  this 
important  phase  of  the  religious  history  of  his  time  a  new  epoch. 
In  this  work  we  marvel  at  the  fruitfulness  of  his  mind  and  the 
number  of  sermons  preached  by  him.  For  years  he  filled  every 
Sunday  the  pulpit  in  the  old  Stadt-Kirche,  that  still  stands  in  the 
old  town  square  at  Wittenberg,  besides  conducting  regular  Sun- 
day services  with  the  monks  and  in  later  years  with  his  family, 
his  "Hausgemeinde,"  as  he  called  it,  and  which  included  all  the 
guests  and  servants  about  the  place.  When  away  from  home  he 
was  called  upon  continually  to  expound  the  Scriptures.  He  was 
heard  with  eagerness  and  profit  by  the  people  always,  as  they 
listened  to  a  preacher  who  knew  that  the  first  merit  in  a  sermon 
was  that  it  could  be  understood.  During  the  troubles  created  by 
Carlstadt  he  preached  at  Orlamiinde  at  a  time  when  the  whole 


300         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

population  was  in  the  fields  harvesting,  but  who  left  their  work 
and  assembled  in  the  Church  to  hear  a  preacher,  who,  no  matter 
what  was  the  text,  was  always  sure  to  get  around  in  his  sermon 
again  to  that  great  doctrine  of  grace  which  he  had  finally  got  hold 
of  after  sore  conflict  in  the  Erfurt  Monastery — the  doctrine  of 
saving  merit  made  over  once  for  all  to  every  believer  in  Christ, 
the  doctrine  that  faith  is  not  a  mere  belief  in  propositions,  but  a 
trust  in,  and  a  personal  fellowship  with,  a  crucified  Lord.  At 
Zwickau,  whither  he  had  gone  shortly  after  returning  from  the 
Wartburg  in  order  to  counteract  the  influence  of  the  heavenly 
prophets,  an  immense  assembly  of  people  came  together  to  hear 
him.  He  preached  in  the  use  of  the  vigorous  mother  tongue  of 
his  people,  which  he  had  done  so  much  to  create,  from  a  window 
in  the  city  hall  to  over  twenty-five  thousand  people,  who  crowded 
the  market  place  of  the  town,  and  a  little  later  he  addressed  an 
audience  that  filled  the  castle  court. 

As  a  leader  in  the  restoration  of  scriptural  preaching,  Luther 
was  eminent  in  a  combination  of  excellent  qualities.  He  had  in 
a  rare  degree  that  commanding  fulness  of  being  which  is  of  such 
immense  service  to  the  preacher.  His  love  for  humanity,  his  fine 
natural  gifts  and  character,  his  strong  intellect  and  imagination, 
his  happy  temperament,  combined  with  courage  and  honesty,  his 
learning  and  knowledge  of  the  Bible  and  theology,  his  subordina- 
tion of  rhetoric  to  the  great  purpose  served  by  preaching,  his 
sturdy  straight- forwardness,  added  to  his  spiritual  power  in  the 
experience  of  divine  grace  and  his  overwhelming  earnestness  of 
conviction  that  he  had  and  must  proclaim  the  Gospel  of  God. 
present  a  combination  of  factors  that  could  not  fail  to  make  of 
him  one  of  the  greatest  preachers  in  all  time,  and  a  chosen  instru- 
ment in  the  reinstatement  of  the  function  of  Christian  preaching 
to  its  rightful  place  in  the  Christian  Church.  He  believed,  and 
therefore  he  spoke  out  of  the  fulness  of  his  experience  and  con- 
victions, out  of  his  sense  of  duty  to  God  and  his  fellowmen,  and 
out  of  love  to  both,  and  without  the  fear  of  man  before  his  eyes. 

The  late  Dr.  Dale,  the  greatest  theological  preacher  of  his  day 
in  England — preaching  for  forty-five  years  in  one  pulpit,  which 
he  made  famous — in  his  "Laws  for  Common  Life"  pays  a  great 
tribute  to  the  Reformer  as  a  teacher  sent  of  God  and  qualified  to 
lead  the  people  back  once  more  to  a  new  estimate  of  the  great- 
ness and  dignity  of  the  Christian  preacher's  place  and  office.     Of 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  301 

him  Dr.  Dale  says:  "He  had  a  fiery  and  passionate  hatred  of 
falsehood  and  of  sin ;  a  dauntless  courage  in  the  assertion  of  the 
claims  of  truth  and  righteousness.  He  had  a  boundless  faith  and 
a  boundless  joy  in  God.  His  joy  was  of  a  masculine  kind  and 
made  him  stronger  for  his  work.  His  faith  was  of  a  masculine 
kind  and  relieved  him  from  worrying  doubts  and  fears  about  his 
soul's  affairs.  He  had  his  gloomy  times,  his  conflicts  with  prin- 
cipalities and  powers  in  dismal  and  solitary  places ;  but  he  had  no 
morbid  dreams  about  the  sanctity  of  misery,  nor  did  he  suppose 
that  the  ever-blessed  God  finds  any  satisfaction  in  the  self-inflicted 
sufferings  of  his  children.  His  massive  face  and  robust  form 
were  the  outward  and  visible  signs  of  the  vigor  and  massiveness 
of  his  moral  and  religious  character.  He  was  a  man  and  did  not 
try  to  be  anything  else.  God  made  him  a  man ;  what  was  he  that 
he  should  quarrel  with  God's  work  ?  He  had  flesh  and  blood ;  he 
could  not  help  it.  He  ate  heartily  and  enjoyed  seeing  his  friends 
at  dinner.  He  married  a  wife  and  loved  her ;  and  he  loved  God 
none  the  less.  He  liked  music  and  songs  as  well  as  preaching 
and  sermons.  He  could  laugh  as  well  as  preach.  He  had  a 
genial  humor  as  well  as  deep  devotedness.  He  was  a  brave  man, 
strong  and  resolute,  with  abounding  life  of  all  kinds ;  a  saint  of  a 
type  with  which  for  many  evil  centuries  Christendom  had  been 
unfamiliar." 

V 

It  has  sometimes  been  affirmed,  or  at  least  assumed,  that  toler- 
ation and  indifferentism  are  synonymous,  or  at  least  correlated, 
terms,  by  which  it  always  seems  to  be  meant  that  those  whose 
faith  is  of  the  unambiguous  and  unhesitating  order  are  sure  to 
persecute  dissentients  from  their  views.  If  men  of  this  order 
have  the  means  at  hand  their  attitude,  it  is  assumed,  will  be  that 
of  intolerance  toward  such  as  maintain  other  views  than  those 
held  by  them,  and  that  they  will  use  repressive  measures  even  to 
the  extent  of  persecution.  On  the  other  hand,  it  has  been  as- 
sumed that  doubt,  especially  in  the  sphere  of  religion,  has  been 
conducive  to  breadth,  candor  and  toleration.  This  assumption  is 
the  one  chief  defect  in  Hartpole  Lecky's  otherwise  valuable 
work  on  "Rationalism  in  Europe,"  and  the  same  unhistorical  as- 
sumption is  not  entirely  absent  from  the  writings  of  Mr.  Froude. 
There  are  some  modern  writers  who  are  such  ardent  and  thor- 


302    LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

ough-going  advocates  of  toleration  in  general,  that  they  have  gone 
so  far  as  to  say  that  no  "exclusive"  religion,  such,  for  example, 
as  Roman  Catholicism,  ought  to  be  tolerated,  because  in  the  name 
of  consistency  it  is  committed  to  the  suppression  of  all  dissent 
from  its  officially  declared  views  whenever  it  has  the  power.  The 
theory  herein  advocated  is  a  fine  example  of  the  intolerance  and 
inconsistency  of  liberalism;  and  evidence  that  skepticism  in  re- 
ligion is  always  biased  and  interested,  and  that  it  springs  out  of  a 
desire,  conscious  or  unconscious,  as  the  case  may  be,  to  overthrow 
that  which  the  general  mind  of  mankind  has  found  to  be  true  and 
upon  which  it  rests  with  confidence  as  a  basis  of  truth.  It  is  a 
mistake  to  assume  that  the  resort  to  persecuting  methods  has 
always  been  found  to  be  based  on  religious  principles,  or  that  it  is 
always  true  that  the  religions  which  are  commonly  regarded  as 
the  most  dogmatic  and  exclusive  have  always  been  the  most  in- 
tolerant or  the  most  persecuting  in  either  principle  or  practice. 
Taking  the  word  toleration,  then,  as  not  meaning  indifference  to 
truth,  in  no  proper  sense  is  there  any  ground,  either  of  abstract 
reasoning  or  historical  evidence,  for  alleging  that  it  is  incompatible 
with  genuine  religious  beliefs  unambiguously  stated  and  uncom- 
promisingly advocated.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  chief  forms  of 
intolerance  and  persecution  recorded  in  history  have  sprung  much 
more  from  social  and  political  than  from  distinctively  religious 
motives.  Instead  of  intolerance  being  a  religious  duty,  as  some 
of  the  Reformers  and  the  Church  of  Rome  taught,  the  principle 
of  toleration  comes  to  us  commended  by  all  the  best  and  the 
earliest  traditions  of  the  Christian  Church,  as  well  as  by  unmis- 
takable affirmations  of  Luther,  in  a  period  of  almost  universal 
intolerance. 

One  of  the  inestimable  blessings  of  the  Reformation  was  the 
demand  for  the  liberty  of  every  man  to  serve  God  according  to 
the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience.  That  movement,  in  one  of  its 
most  important  aspects,  was  a  great  act  of  emancipation  from 
spiritual  tyranny  and  a  vindication  of  the  sacred  rights  of  con- 
science in  matters  of  religious  belief.  That  was  one  of  the  lead- 
ing issues  in  the  Diet  of  Worms  in  1521,  when  Luther  made  his 
famous  stand  in  what  has  been  regarded  as  one  of  the  sublimest 
contests  in  behalf  of  the  right  of  every  man  to  think  for  himself 
in  the  grave  concerns  of  the  human  soul ;  the  assertion  of  that 
liberty  of  conscience,  which,  as  Froude  has  said,  made  "the  ap- 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  303 

pearance  of  Luther  before  the  Diet  on  this  occasion  one  of  the 
finest — perhaps  it  is  the  very  finest — scenes  in  human  history." 
That  right  was  asserted  by  all  of  the  reformers,  but  not  prac- 
ticed by  all  of  them.  But  notwithstanding  the  inconsistency  that 
sometimes  marked  the  conduct  of  some  of  the  very  men  who 
claimed  and  exercised  the  right  of  protest  in  the  name  of  con- 
science and  of  revolt  against  the  established  ecclesiasticism  of  the 
day,  the  Reformation  was  a  grand  act  of  emancipation  from 
spiritual  tyranny,  and  an  effectual  vindication  of  the  sacred  rights 
of  conscience  in  matters  of  religious  belief.  The  early  documents 
of  that  movement  are  full  of  brilliant  declarations  of  the  rights 
of  conscience.  It  could  hardly  have  been  otherwise,  for  only  by 
an  appeal  to  such  rights  could  the  leaders  of  that  movement 
justify  their  own  attitude  towards  a  religious  system  which,  until 
the  time  came  that  they  assailed  it,  had  commanded  the  assent  of 
the  nations  of  Europe. 

In  this  important  contribution  of  the  movement  Luther  oc- 
cupied the  foremost  position  among  the  reformers.  He  clearly 
foresaw  the  far-reaching  effects  that  were  involved  in  his  protest 
against  Rome,  and  during  the  stormy  period  of  protest,  discussion 
and  defiance  extending  from  1517  to  1521,  he  was  the  fearless 
champion  of  the  right  of  men  to  follow  their  own  consciences 
and  think  for  themselves  in  the  great  concerns  of  religion.  He 
has  furnished  some  of  the  noblest  utterances  against  coercion  in 
matters  of  conscience — declarations  which  affirm  almost  every  es- 
sential feature  of  the  modern  theory  on  the  subject.  In  1529,  in 
his  "Sermon  on  Excommunication,"  distinguishing  between  in- 
ward and  outward  church  communion,  he  declared  that  of  the 
first  none  can  be  deprived  "by  any  man,  be  he  bishop  or  pope,  yea, 
not  by  angels  or  by  any  creature,  but  only  by  God  Himself."  He 
draws  a  sharp  line  between  the  temporal  power,  which  he  declares 
to  be  confined  to  the  body  and  worldly  goods,  and  that  spiritual 
government  which  belongs  with  God  only.  He  defended  the 
rights  of  conscience  against  kings  and  princes  as  strongly  as 
against  popes  and  other  ecclesiastics.  In  1523,  writing  in  his 
book  on  "Temporal  Authority  and  How  Far  Obedience  Is  Due 
to  It,"  he  says :  "Worldly  rule  has  laws  which  do  not  extend  fur- 
ther than  our  body  and  goods,  and  what  is  external  upon  earth, 
for  over  souls  God  can  and  will  suffer  no  one  to  rule,  save  Him- 
self alone.     Beloved,  we  are  not  baptized  into  the  name  of  kings, 


304         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

princes  or  nobles,  but  into  the  name  of  Christ  and  God  only ;  we 
are  not  called  after  kings  and  princes  or  mobs;  we  are  called 
Christians.  No  one  can  or  ought  to  command  the  soul,  except 
him  who  can  show  it  the  way  to  heaven.  But  that  can  no  man 
do.  but  God  only.  Therefore,  in  matters  which  concern  the  salva- 
tion of  souls,  nothing  but  God's  Word  ought  to  be  taught  or  re- 
ceived." Again  he  says,  "But  the  thoughts  and  mind  of  man  can 
be  opened  to  no  one  but  God ;  wherefore,  it  is  futile  and  impossible 
to  command  or  by  force  to  compel  anyone  to  believe  so  or  so." 
"There  wants  another  grip  for  that;  force  avails  nothing." 
*  *  *  "It  is  at  a  man's  own  risk  what  he  believes,  and  he 
must  see  for  himself  that  he  believes  rightly.  For  just  as  little  as 
another  can  go  for  me  to  heaven  or  hell,  can  he  for  me  believe 
or  disbelieve;  and  just  as  little  as  he  can  open  or  shut  heaven  or 
hell  for  me,  can  he  drive  me  to  belief  or  unbelief  *  *  *  for 
belief  is  a  free  work ;  thereto  can  no  man  be  compelled." 

In  his  book  on  "Secular  Authority"  he  deals  with  the  limita- 
tions of  the  civil  values  in  respect  to  religious  matters,  denying  to 
them  any  part  in  the  suppression  of  heresy — a  remarkable  position 
to  be  taken  when  but  very  few  men  had  escaped  the  ideas  that 
had  come  down  as  a  heritage  from  the  preceding  ages,  and  at  a 
time  when  most  men  looked  upon  the  state  as  the  guardian  of 
both  tables  of  the  law  and  expected  it  to  punish  religious  as  well 
as  civil  wrong-doing.  There  were  times  when  the  Reformer 
called  upon  the  Government  to  use  strong  measures  against  men 
who  were  in  revolt  against  the  civil  authorities ;  times  also  when 
he  urged  such  authorities  to  crush  out  some  of  the  troublesome 
sects  that  were  subverting  the  laws  of  the  land  and  disturbing 
their  neighbors  by  their  blasphemies  and  unbridled  fanaticism. 
But  even  in  such  instances  there  went  forth,  also,  a  plea  for 
mercy  and  exemption  from  great  hardship.  "Because,"  he  said, 
"no  one  can  be  forced  to  believe  by  such  means,  since  he  is  still 
able  to  believe  exactly  as  he  pleases.  Only  teaching  and  blas- 
phemy should  be  forbidden,  since  by  such  methods  he  would  rob 
God  and  Christians  of  Word  and  doctrine,  turning  to  their  own 
ill  the  protection  and  worldly  advantage  that  their  society  affords 
him."  In  1528  he  wrote  concerning  the  Anabaptists,  whom  he 
opposed  with  all  the  energy  of  his  strong  nature :  "I  do  not  ap- 
prove it,  and  truly  regret  that  such  miserable  people  are  being 
wretchedly  murdered,  burned  and  brutally  destroyed.     Each  one 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  305 

should  be  allowed  to  believe  what  he  will.  If  he  holds  a  false 
belief  he  is  sufficiently  punished  by  the  eternal  fires  of  hell.  Why 
should  temporal  torments  be  added  so  long  as  he  only  errs  in 
faith,  and  does  not  also  foment  rebellion  or  otherwise  withstand 
authorities?  Dear  God,  how  does  it  happen  that  one  errs  and 
falls  into  the  snare  of  the  devil?  He  should  be  restrained  and 
opposed  by  the  Scriptures  and  God's  Word."  Of  Luther's  atti- 
tude on  this  subject  our  American  historian,  Bancroft,  has  said: 
"Luther  repelled  the  use  of  violence  in  religion ;  he  protested 
against  propagating  reforms  by  persecution,  and  with  a  wise  mod- 
eration he  maintained  the  sublime  doctrine  of  freedom  of  con- 
science." He  knew  that  the  most  that  force  could  do  was  to 
produce  an  external  conformity.  "For  the  miserable,  blind  people 
do  not  see  what  a  quite  futile  and  impossible  thing  they  undertake. 
For  however  straitly  they  command,  however  stoutly  they  rage, 
they  cannot  bring  people  further  than  to  follow  them  with  mouth 
and  hand;  the  heart  they  cannot  compel,  should  they  even  tear 
at  it.  For  true  is  the  proverb,  'thoughts  are  toll-free.'  "  "I  have 
little  love  for  condemnations  to  death,"  he  further  says.  "Look 
at  the  Jews  and  the  papists.  The  Mosaic  law  commanded  that 
false  prophets  should  be  slain,  and  they  ended  by  killing  almost 
none  but  blameless  and  holy  prophets.  Heresy  is  a  spiritual 
thing,  which  cannot  be  hewn  down  with  an  axe,  or  burned  with 
any  fire,  or  drowned  with  any  water.  Over  the  souls  of  men 
God  can  and  will  have  no  one  rule  save  Himself  alone.  We 
should  overcome  heretics  with  books,  not  with  fire.  If  there 
were  any  skill  in  overcoming  heretics  with  fire,  the  executioner 
would  be  the  most  learned  doctor  in  the  world."  In  the  "Baby- 
lonian Captivity"  of  1520,  he  writes:  "I  cry  aloud  in  behalf  of 
liberty  of  conscience,"  while  again  he  implored  his  prince  "not  to 
imbrue  his  hands  in  the  blood  of  those  new  prophets  of  Zwickau." 
In  1523  he  protested  against  the  cruel  treatment  of  the  Jews,  as 
if  they  were  dogs  and  not  human  beings,  advising  kindness  and 
charity  as  the  best  means  of  converting  them.  One  of  the  charges 
set  forth  against  him  in  the  bull  of  excommunication,  which 
served  to  rend  asunder  western  Christendom,  was  that  he  had 
taught  that  "to  burn  heretics  is  against  the  will  of  God."  The 
Reformer's  view  on  this  subject,  about  which  there  has  been 
much  misunderstanding  and  the  dissemination  of  much  misrepre- 
sentation, could  not  be  stated  in  more  unmistakable  language 


306         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

than  this :  "I  will  preach,  I  will  talk  in  private,  I  will  write,  but 
I  will  not  constrain  anyone,  for  faith  is  a  voluntary  act.  Let  no 
heretic  be  restricted  with  force.  We  have  a  right  to  speak,  but 
none  whatever  to  compel.  If  I  resort  to  force  what  do  I  gain? 
Cramped  uniformity  and  hypocrisy.  But  there  will  be  no  hearty 
sincerity,  no  faith,  no  love." 

But  in  spite  of  these  and  other  lofty  ideas  of  toleration  ad- 
vocated so  unmistakably  by  Luther,  and  which,  it  will  be  ob- 
served, cover  almost  the  whole  theoretical  ground  of  religious 
liberty  and  the  rights  of  conscience,  some  of  the  most  melancholy 
chapters  in  some  periods  of  Protestant  history  have  been  written 
in  contradiction  of  these  ideas.  In  the  long  march  of  human 
progress  nothing  has  been  of  slower  growth  than  that  tolerance 
contemplated  in  the  views  of  Luther,  even  he  himself  in  some  in- 
stances, and  in  a  moderate  degree,  feeling  obliged  to  depart  from 
them.  In  this,  as  in  other  matters,  the  position  of  the  leader  of 
the  Reformation  movement  was  in  many  respects  difficult  and 
painful.  Not  always  was  he  able  to  confine  Protestantism  to  its 
own  protest.  Much  that  has  been  claimed,  especially  in  this 
country,  by  older  historical  writers  in  behalf  of  Puritanism  has 
no  basis  in  fact.  In  England  in  the  seventeenth  century  all  par- 
ties when  persecuted  advocated  liberty  of  conscience,  and  all 
parties  when  in  power  exercised  intolerance,  but  in  different  de- 
grees. It  mattered  not  who  was  in  power,  Independent,  Presby- 
terian or  Anglican,  fire  and  sword,  fines,  pillories,  slitting  noses, 
cropping  of  ears  and  cheek  burnings,  depositions  and  disabilities, 
made  it  very  unpleasant  for  those  who  elected  to  dissent.  Neither 
Cromwell,  Cartwright  or  Laud  were  shining  exponents  of  Lu- 
ther's views.  For  a  period  of  twenty  years,  from  1640  to  1660, 
Puritanism  ruled  England  in  an  earnest  and  excited  period  of 
that  country's  history.  It  saved  the  rights  of  the  people  in  a 
conflict  against  the  oppression  of  tyrannical  rulers,  but  it  punished 
intolerance  with  intolerance,  enforcing  Puritan  in  place  of  Episco- 
pal uniformity  and  with  a  measure  of  cruelty  not  surpassed  by 
the  hated  Anglican.  The  Puritan  colonies  in  this  country,  it  is 
true,  were  democratic,  but  so  far  from  recognizing  liberty  of 
conscience,  they  explicitly  rejected  it  as  implying  a  godless  skepti- 
cism. Neither  Anglicanism  or  Puritanism  in  the  England  of  the 
seventeenth  century  had  learned  by  suffering  this  principle,  in- 
herent in  the  very  genius  of  Protestantism. 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  307 

The  early  Puritan  and  Episcopalian  colonists  in  America  had 
imbibed  the  views  upon  this  subject  that  prevailed  beyond  the  sea. 
Tenaciously  they  clung  to  their  false  ideals  until  by  sheer  force  of 
circumstances  they  were  compelled  reluctantly  to  give  them  up. 
True,  the  Puritans  sought  and  obtained  freedom  to  worship  God, 
but  they  never  dreamed  of  extending  the  same  liberty  to  others. 
What  they  wanted  was  a  state  in  which  their  own  peculiar 
religious  views  should  be  the  law  for  all.  They  were  in  search  of 
a  land  where  they  could  be  and  do  what  the  Anglican  Church  was 
and  did  in  England.  In  churchmen  the  Puritan  condemned  the 
requirement  that  others  should  conform  to  Episcopal  views.  In 
themselves  it  seemed  a  just  and  holy  desire  to  force  on  others 
Puritan  views  of  life  and  duty,  because1 — so  they  reasoned — they 
stood  for  truth,  and  the  Church  of  England  for  error.  The  great 
truths  of  the  right  of  private  judgment,  and  that  spiritual  truth 
must  not  and  cannot  be  enforced  by  physical  power,  never  seemed 
to  find  lodgment  in  the  Puritan  mind.  The  fact  that  it  never  was 
supposed  that  toleration  was  to  be  extended  to  those  who  were 
not  Puritans  is  one  of  the  things  that  help  to  explain  the  glaring 
inconsistency  between  some  of  Cromwell's  utterances  and  much 
of  his  conduct.  But  he  had  to  work  with  a  people  whose  co-oper- 
ation was  indispensable  to  him,  and  who  thought  that  liberty  of 
conscience  was  a  heinous  sin.  One  fanatic  said  that  if  the  devil 
had  his  choice  whether  the  hierarchy  and  liturgy  should  be  estab- 
lished in  the  kingdom  or  toleration  granted,  the  devil  would  choose 
toleration.  Another  said  that  to  let  men  serve  God  according  to 
their  own  consciences  was  to  cast  out  one  devil  that  seven  more 
might  enter. 

The  teaching  of  leading  Puritans  in  Massachusetts  on  religious 
liberty  are  all  in  one  line.  Mr.  Cobb,  the  author  of  "The  Rise  of 
Religious  Liberty  in  America,"  quoting  from  "Force  and  Felt," 
writes:  "To  the  early  leaders  of  Massachusetts,  especially  the 
religious  leaders,  toleration  of  dissent  from  the  established  order 
of  religious  worship  was  as  sedition  in  the  state  and  sin  against 
God." 

John  Cotton  declared  that  "it  was  toleration  that  made  the 
wo'rld  anti-Christian."  "Polipiety."  or  variety  of  sects,  says  Na- 
thaniel Wood,  "is  the  greatest  impiety  in  the  world,"  and  he  fur- 
ther declares :  "He  that  is  willing  to  tolerate  an  unsound  opinion, 
that  his  own  may  be  tolerated,  will,  for  a  need,  hang  God's  Bible 


308         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

at  the  devil's  girdle."  So  late  as  1673,  the  President  of  Harvard 
College  said  in  an  election  sermon:  "I  look  upon  unbounded 
toleration  as  the  first-born  of  all  abominations."  In  1635  Roger 
Williams,  pastor  of  the  Salem  Church,  was  banished  because  he 
had  denounced  the  existing  theocracy  and  the  interference  of 
magistrates  with  religious  matters,  while  in  1659  the  observance 
of  Christmas  was  made  a  punishable  offence. 

It  is  due  the  Puritan  and  his  memory,  however,  to  say  in  this 
connection  that  the  same  spirit  of  intolerance  was  displayed  in 
Virginia  and  New  York  by  the  Episcopalians  and  the  Dutch. 

To  this  question  of  Puritanism,  as  to  many  other  questions, 
there  were  two  sides,  one  of  serious  estimate  and  another  of  bur- 
lesque and  travesty.  And  time  tries  both  sides.  The  Puritan  was 
narrow,  and  his  narrowness  can  be  easily  explained.  The  weak- 
ness of  the  Puritan  was  the  weakness  of  his  age.  In  his  essay  on 
William  Laud,  Dean  Hodges  says  that  "sometimes  the  saints  hated 
the  saints.  There  were  good  men  on  both  sides,  as  there  are 
heroes  on  both  sides  in  all  wars.  But  it  was  hard  for  the  good 
men  who  were  on  the  one  side  to  believe  that  the  good  men  on  the 
other  side  were  good;  they  always  seemed  to  them  to  be  the 
enemies  of  right."  In  a  time  of  which  this  could  be  affirmed  the 
Puritan  lived  and  wrought,  in  spite  of  his  canting  intolerance,  for 
some  fundamental  principles  that  were  deeply  rooted  in  the  Lu- 
theran Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century.  In  this  was  his  real 
contribution  to  free  government. 

But  notwithstanding  the  recurrence  of  such  contradictions  even 
in  Protestantism  itself,  there  has  been  such  a  constant  reversion  to 
the  real  and  underlying  principles  of  the  movement,  that  they  have 
overmastered  the  deplorable  contradictions,  until  the  spirit  of 
toleration  is  one  of  the  worked-out  results  of  the  great  movement 
of  the  sixteenth  century  in  all  lands  dominated  by  its  principles. 
In  isolated  instances  the  principle  of  toleration  inherent  in  gen- 
uine Protestantism  has,  no  doubt,  been  disallowed ;  but  the  prin- 
ciple has  so  triumphed  that  intolerance  has  disappeared  from 
among  the  most  enlightened  people  of  the  earth,  and  that  never 
to  be  reinstated. 

The  primary  fact  that  man  is  free  before  God,  and  should  be 
untrammeled  in  his  access  to  God,  could  not  be  so  abstracted  as 
to  have  no  kind  of  application  to  a  man's  civil  and  social  rela- 
tions.    When  Luther  projected  the  thought  into  modern  civiliza- 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  309 

lion  that  the  Bible,  interpreted  by  private  judgment  and  not  by 
papal  authority,  should  be  the  supreme  standard  of  faith  and 
practice  among  men ;  that  the  Church  derived  its  authority  from 
the  Bible  and  not  the  Bible  from  the  Church ;  then  he  uttered  the 
thoughts  which  have  given  us  our  free  institutions,  free  thinking, 
free  press,  free  schools,  free  Bible,  free  Church,  and  freedom  of 
scientific  inquiry,  and  all  the  best  expressions  oi  the  civilization  in 
the  benefits  of  which  it  is  our  privilege  to  live.  By  virtue  of  its 
being  a  return  to  the  teachings  of  Christ  the  Reformation  accom- 
plished even  more  than  it  contemplated.  Mr.  Lecky  has  said  that 
"toleration  is  created  by  skepticism,  and  belong  to  a  skeptical  age." 
Post-Reformation  history  disproves  the  assertion.  Where  re- 
ligion is  made  a  matter  of  conscience,  and  not  of  the  magistrate, 
toleration  is  necessary,  and,  in  harmony  with  this  historical  fact, 
whenever  Protestantism  has  attempted  to  coerce  conscience  by 
punishing  religious  dissent  with  sword  and  fagot  it  has  been 
illogical  and  inconsistent  with  its  own  genius  and  principles. 

When  Luther,  on  the  threshold  of  the  Reformation,  declared 
that  "it  is  against  the  Holy  Ghost  that  heretics  should  be  burned/' 
and  when  later  Leo  X,  following  the  teaching  of  both  Augustine 
and  Aquinas,  denounced  that  position  of  Luther  in  the  bull  of 
excommunication,  it  was  the  spirit  of  medievalism  clashing  with 
the  spirit  of  modern  times  in  a  struggle  that  was  not  to  cease 
until  the  victory  of  the  new  principle  had  been  fully  assured  in 
the  tolerance  of  modern  times. 

VI 

The  Reformation  under  Luther,  as  we  have  seen,  began  with 
the  discovery  that  salvation  is  a  free  gift  of  God  to  men 
through  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  this  gift  is  appropriated  directly 
by  faith,  and  not  by  means  of  the  intervention  of  any  human 
mediator.  He  placed  the  emphasis  in  theology  on  the  atonement, 
and  the  churches  which  bear  the  impress  of  his  teaching  through- 
out the  world  to  this  day  are  monuments  as  notable  as  the  ecu- 
menical creeds  to  the  invincible  resistance  of  a  child  of  God  to 
any  kind  of  sacerdotalism,  which,  in  effect,  stands  between  the 
sinful  and  yet  trustful  soul  and  the  Saviour  through  Whom  it  is 
reconciled  to  God,  and  in  consequence  brought  into  a  state  of 
spiritual    tranquillity.      He   revolted,   as   we   have    seen,    against 


310         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

the  imposition  of  penance  and  payments,  or  the  interposition 
of  any  priestly  caste  or  order  with  its  accompaniments  of 
ritual  and  sacrifice,  and  once  more  led  men  back  to  the  great 
truth  that  the  Christian  soul  could  never  find  real  and  abiding 
spiritual  rest  until,  in  the  urgency  of  its  needs  and  the  claims  of 
its  dignity,  it  could  come  at  once  with  its  own  voice  and  its  own 
plea  into  the  Father's  house.  Luther,  in  a  large  sense,  became 
the  true  successor  of  Paul  and  Augustine.  The  reform  associated 
with  his  name  and  work  was  occupied  primarily  with  the  be- 
stowment  of  the  divine  life ;  with  the  question,  how  can  the 
blessed  gift  of  the  forgiveness  of  sin  be  transferred  as  a  matter 
of  fact  and  personal  experience  to  the  erring  and  evil  souls  of 
men?  These  were  primary  considerations,  as  we  have  observed, 
in  the  great  revival  of  the  sixteenth  century.  It  wrought  for  the 
spiritual  emancipation  of  men,  making  all  equal  before  God.  But 
in  its  further  development  it  has  wrought  also  for  temporal 
emancipation,  the  making  of  all  men  equal  with  each  other,  the 
restoration  to  all  of  an  equal  share  in  the  conduct  of  human  af- 
fairs, the  right  of  the  individual  to  the  enjoyment  of  life,  liberty 
and  happiness  simply  and  solely  as  a  human  being  on  terms  of 
equality  with  all  other  persons  under  the  regulation  of  right- 
eousness. 

Never  before  has  the  genesis  of  democracy  and  the  real  mean- 
ing and  significance  of  the  word  and  its  justification  and  possibil- 
ities been  the  subjects  of  as  much  interest  as  today.  Much  of 
the  discussion  called  out  by  the  quadri-centennial  celebration  of 
the  Reformation,  in  this  and  other  lands,  was  addressed  to  an 
examination  of  the  sources  of  freedom  in  all  of  its  aspects  and 
applications.  In  such  discussions  there  has  been  a  striking 
agreement  among  qualified  writers  regarding  the  relation  of  the 
great  religious  awakening  of  the  sixteenth  century  to  the  sub- 
ject. As  we  have  seen,  the  animating  principle  at  the  heart  of 
that  great  movement  was  an  honest  desire  for  a  reformation  of 
the  Church  which  had  so  sadly  fallen  away  from  the  Gospel  of 
the  Lord  and  His  apostles.  To  this  end  the  efforts  of  all  the 
reformers  were  primarily  directed.  But  associated  with  these 
efforts  at  what  was  a  distinctly  religious  reformation,  there  were 
certain  social,  political  and  economic  results  which  were  not  di- 
rectly sought,  but  which  have,  in  the  years  that  have  succeeded, 
profoundly  affected  civilization  in  all  of  its  aspects.     In  most  re- 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  311 

spects  the  modern  world  dates  from  the  posting  of  Luther's  theses, 
which  act  was  a  real  declaration  of  independence  more  than  two 
centuries  and  a  half  before  that  made  by  our  fathers  at  Philadel- 
phia in  1776.  The  movement  inaugurated  by  that  act  was  the 
iirst  of  that  series  of  progressive  democratic  revolutions  which 
transformed  the  medieval  into  the  modern  world.  The  beating 
heart  of  that  great  movement  was  the  assertion  of  the  rights  of 
the  individual  conscience  against  the  usurpations  and  encroach- 
ments of  a  great  organized  expression  of  ecclestiastical  tyranny. 
Its  method  then  was  an  appeal  to  the  people  against  the  privileges 
and  assumptions  of  a  hierarchy  aspiring  to  world  dominion  in 
matters  both  secular  and  religious.  It  brought  about  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  intellect,  and  that  led  inevitably  to  liberty  of  con- 
science. Freedom  of  religious  belief,  it  very  soon  became  mani- 
fest, involved  to  a  large  degree  political  independence  and  the 
just  claim  of  the  people  to  a  larger  share  in  the  exercise  of  their 
civil  rights.  The  Lutheran  revolt  very  soon  changed  the  aspect 
of  affairs  and  the  attitude  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  Before  1517 
independence  of  thought  and  speech  could  be  condoned  as  a  mat- 
ter of  but  small  consequence,  very  much  like  the  license  which 
an  absolute  sovereign  can  allow  a  contented  people  in  a  time  of 
peace.  But  after  the  outbreak  in  Germany  had  gathered  head- 
way, the  Church  perceived  that  it  was  facing  a  new  enemy.  It 
was  virtually  obliged  to  declare  a  state  of  siege  and  invoke  mar- 
tial law  for  the  suppression  of  mental  insubordination.  Luther 
was  pre-eminently  a  religious  character,  and  his  great  funda- 
mental work  was  accomplished  in  the  sphere  of  religion,  but  his 
influence  reached  far  beyond  the  frontiers  of  that  which  was  dis- 
tinctly religious  in  both  teaching  and  action.  The  world  today  is 
a  freer  world  to  live  in  and  to  work  in,  a  world  of  larger  oppor- 
tunity and  more  confident  hope,  in  consequence  of  Luther's  fol- 
lowing his  own  conscience  and  his  insistence  upon  the  right  of 
other  men  to  do  the  same  thing.  He  was  the  unconscious  herald 
of  the  democracy  of  today.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  not  only 
the  theologian,  but  also  the  political  and  literary  historian,  in- 
terpret the  Reformation  as  one  of  the  greatest  blessings  ever  be- 
stowed upon  mankind. 

On  the  31st  of  October,  1517,  Luther  nailed  his  theses  on  the 
church  door  at  Wittenberg,  thereby  challenging  the  clergy,  the 
university  and  the  pope  to  say  why  Christian  people  should  not 


312         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

reassert  their  scriptural  freedom.  That  was  the  opening  of  a 
movement  that  emancipated  the  more  virile  races  of  Europe  from 
subjection  to  what  had  come  to  be  an  intolerable  ecclesiastical 
bondage.  That  was  the  first  line  of  the  great  battle  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  and  civil  freedom  soon  followed  in  the  wake  of 
the  newly-proclaimed  soul  freedom.  Absolution  in  the  Church 
was  the  outer  line  of  defence,  behind  which  absolution  in  the 
state  felt  itself  safe.  Ecclesiastical  autocracy  was  the  chief  ad- 
junct of  civil  autocracy.  That  line  of  defence  once  broken  down, 
popular  expressions  of  government  in  Church  and  state  were  cer- 
tain to  ensue.  On  either  side  of  royalty  in  Europe  at  that  time 
stood  the  bishop,  with  his  prelatical  pretensions,  and  nearer  to 
the  crown  than  either  castle,  knight  or  peasant. 

In  arranging,  on  one  occasion,  for  a  great  Luther  pageant  a 
German  agnostic  of  distinction  in  his  country  was  asked  how  he 
came  to  take  so  much  interest  in  honoring  a  man  who  had  trans- 
lated the  Bible  into  the  language  of  his  people.  To  the  inquiry 
the  agnostic  replied :  "I  do  not  care  a  fig  for  Luther's  religion. 
It  is  the  political  revolution  that  he  inaugurated  that  we  liberals 
celebrate."  He  thereby  expressed  a  totally  inadequate  view  of 
the  great  Reformation  movement.  Luther  was  primarily  the 
champion  of  that  freedom  which  the  Gospel  asserts  to  be  the 
right  of  every  child  of  God,  and  which,  in  the  final  analysis,  is 
the  only  foundation  of  all  expressions  of  civil  freedom. 

VII 

It  would  be  unhistorical  to  affirm  that  there  were  no  expres- 
sions of  the  democratic  spirit  prior  to  the  Lutheran  Reformation. 
The  seeds  of  democracy  are  manifest  in  certain  facts  and  teach- 
ings that  are  discoverable  in  the  Middle  Ages.  But  these  expres- 
sions of  what  we  regard  as  one  of  the  permanent  factors  in  civili- 
zation were  largely  individual,  isolated  and  uninfluential.  Accord- 
ingly, if  we  are  searching  for  the  genesis  of  democracy,  for  the 
fundamental  principles  which  have  made  it  possible,  we  must  get 
back  further  than  some  interpreters  of  the  subject  are  wont  to  go. 
We  must  get  back  of  the  conflict  at  Runnymede  between  the 
barons  of  England  and  King  John ;  back  of  the  great  charter  of 
rights,  and  of  the  long  parliament ;  back  of  Hampden,  Pym  and 
Milton;  back  of  the  Puritan  conflict  and  the  English  common- 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  313 

wealth;  back  of  the  migration  of  Pilgrim  and  Puritan  to 
America;  back  of  the  Lutheran  Reformation  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  We  must  get  back  in  that  search  for  origins  even  to 
the  vitalizing  teachings  of  the  New  Testament.  John  Stuart  Mill 
once  said  to  the  husband  of  George  Eliot :  "A  great  crisis  in 
the  history  of  liberty  seems  to  me  to  have  come  at  the  cross  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth."  This  brilliant  writer  on  liberty,  who  knew 
so  much  about  so  many  subjects,  Christianity  excepted,  seemed 
to  discern  in  this  grand  fact  in  human  history  the  meeting  place 
of  the  great  forces  of  the  past  and  the  greater  forces  of  the 
future.  Democracy  received  its  inspiration  out  of  the  teachings 
and  death  of  our  Lord.  It  was  born  out  of  the  thought  that  be- 
fore God,  and  as  the  subject  of  a  divinely  provided  and  gracious 
redemption,  all  men  were  absolutely  equal.  Because  in  that 
period  there  were  men  who  believed  in  the  Lord  and  were  striv- 
ing at  least  to  apprehend  the  significance  of  his  teachings,  are 
we  able  to  discern  in  the  Middle  Ages  some  expressions  of  the 
now  widely  dominant  principle  of  democracy. 

The  course  of  events  in  the  Roman  Empire  had  been  toward 
the  continual  aggrandizement  of  the  imperial  class  and  power. 
The  representative  despotism  of  Augustus  was  at  last  succeeded 
by  the  oriental  despotism  of  Diocletian.  The  senate  sank  more 
and  more  into  a  powerless  assembly  of  imperial  nominees,  and  the 
spirit  of  Roman  freedom  wholly  passed  away  with  stoicism. 
Christianity  early  in  its  history  assumed  the  character  of  a  strong, 
disciplinary  institution,  which  proved  itself  to  be  a  good  training 
school  for  the  nations  in  their  infancy  and  youth,  when  the  magis- 
terial factor  was  needed.  Hence  we  have  the  legalistic,  monarch- 
ical development  growing  out  of  the  unscriptural  claims  of  the 
medieval  hierarchy,  which  for  a  thousand  years  affected  for  good 
or  evil  both  the  Church  and  the  world.  It  ruled  the  spirits  of 
men  as  absolutely  as  the  old  Rome  ruled  their  temporal  fortunes. 
Erom  the  fifth  century  until  the  Reformation  the  history  of  the 
Church  is  the  history  of  the  power  of  the  papacy,  of  the  decline 
of  that  power,  and  of  numerous  indications  of  popular  revolt 
against  its  supreme  sway.  But  notwithstanding  the  unscriptural 
claims  in  Church  organization  and  the  monarchical  absolutism  of 
the  papacy,  in  proportion  as  the  nations  were  trained  in  the  school 
of  the  Church  they  came  more  and  more  to  assert  their  inde- 
pendence of  the  hierarchy,  and  to  develop  a  national  spirit  and  a 


314         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

literature  in  their  own  language.  Starting  with  the  assertion  of 
man's  moral  liberty  and  responsibility,  the  very  postulates  of 
many  of  her  doctrines,  the  Church  poured  into  the  nations, 
crushed  and  degraded  by  imperialism,  a  new  vitality,  while  by 
her  self-made  constitution,  her  elected  rulers,  her  deliberative 
councils,  she  did  much,  although  at  times  without  so  intending, 
to  keep  alive  the  free  democratic  traditions  of  an  earlier  time 
which  Cassarism  had  almost  strangled,  and  did  much  to  train 
the  barbarian  tribes  which  entered  her  fold  in  the  principles  and 
exercise  of  that  liberty  that  subsequently  led  to  revolt  and  refor- 
mation. It  proclaimed  loudly  the  doctrine  of  a  career  for  talent 
in  distinction  from  the  entailed  career  of  feudalism  without  tal- 
ent, and  the  Church  was  the  only  institution  in  which  a  poor  boy 
had  a  free  chance.  Her  religious  houses,  too,  were  so  many 
little  republics  scattered  up  and  down  Europe,  while  her  councils 
were  the  only  deliberative  assemblies  of  the  time. 

Pope  Gregory  VII  was  certainly  one  of  the  most  autocratic 
of  the  papal  chieftains,  as  he  was  unquestionably  the  ablest  and 
one  of  the  most  constructive,  but  his  election  was  something  of 
a  forecast  of  popular  government.  The  funeral  rites  of  Alex- 
ander II,  his  predecessor,  who  had  died  only  a  day  before,  were 
being  conducted  in  the  Church  of  St.  John  Lateran,  where  Hilde- 
brand,  as  archdeacon,  was  taking  his  appointed  post  in  the  solemn 
rites,  when  suddenly  there  was  a  great  multitude  of  the  Roman 
clergy  and  people  in  the  church  and  without  who  cried,  "Hilde- 
brand  shall  be  our  pope."  That  strong-willed  leader  and  dicta- 
tor, in  a  large  sense,  of  the  papacy  shrank  from  the  immense 
responsibility  of  the  task  to  which  he  was  being  called  by  the 
people.  In  vain  did  he  rush  to  the  pulpit  and  endeavor  to  calm 
the  tumult.  The  members  of  the  sacred  college  hastily  consulted 
together,  and  with  one  accord  confirmed  the  popular  choice. 
This  once  poor  boy,  the  son  of  a  carpenter,  who  in  his  pontificate 
achieved  the  enfranchisement  of  the  papacy  from  imperial  con- 
trol, was  in  sympathy  with  the  people,  and  maintained  the  cause 
of  the  poor  against  the  violence  of  a  military  aristocracy.  Pope 
after  pope  and  council  after  council  had  fulminated  against 
simony  and  incontinence:  but  what  was  peculiar  and  of  sig- 
nificance in  the  conduct  of  Gregory  was  his  appeal  to  the  faithful 
at  large,  his  making  the  people  executors  of  his  reformatory 
papal  decrees.     His  appeal  involved  severity  and  hardship.     By 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  315 

his  mandate  married  priests  were  required  instantly  to  renounce 
their  wives  or  to  renounce  the  priesthood,  while  married  bishops 
who  disobeyed  were  to  be  degraded  from  office.  But  in  all  of  his 
inexorable  demands  Gregory's  appeal  was  made  to  the  popular 
mind.  Many  of  the  great  ecclesiastics  of  the  time  had  come  from 
the  ranks  of  the  people,  and  men  for  the  most  part  true  to  their 
democratic  instincts  were  often  found  to  be  the  inflexible  sup- 
porters of  right  against  might,  and  by  their  attitude  in  the  affairs 
of  the  Church  had  shown  how  that  a  representative  system  might 
be  introduced  into  the  state. 

The  significance  of  the  famous  controversy  between  Philip  the 
Fair  of  France  and  Pope  Boniface  VIII,  consists  in  this,  that  it 
was  the  first  of  a  series  of  national  protests  which  never  ceased 
until  the  nations  of  western  Europe  had  accomplished  their  eman- 
cipation from  external  influence,  whether  ecclesiastical  or  im- 
perial, and  the  modern  world  was  born,  in  which  the  nations 
stand  in  their  freedom  and  independence  before  God,  answerable 
only  to  Him  and  the  people. 

There  were  also  many  utterances  of  the  time  ominously  demo- 
cratic in  tone.  Foremost  among  the  threatening  and  somewhat 
revolutionary  productions  of  the  first  half  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  for  example,  was  a  book  entitled  "Defensor  Pads."  It 
had  for  its  author  a  physician  of  Padua  known  as  Marsilio.  No 
later  hand  has  traced  back  with  finer  historic  tact  the  mundane 
conditions  which  first  made  possible  and  then  favored  the  growth 
of  hierarchical  ideas  and  monarchical  assumptions,  and  none  has 
searched  out  with  a  more  pitiless  logic  the  weak  places  in  the 
armor  of  both.  Marsilio's  book  was  a  philosophical  examina- 
tion of  the  principles  of  government  and  of  the  nature  and  limits 
of  sacerdotal  power.  Its  democratic  tendency  was  evident  in  its 
demonstration  that  the  exposition  of  the  law  of  Christianity  rests 
not  with  the  pope  nor  any  other  priest,  but  with  a  general  and 
representative  council.  It  rejected  the  papal  political  preten- 
sions, and  asserted  that  the  pope,  even,  had  no  right  to  attempt  to 
coerce  human  thinking.  In  its  view  of  Church  government  it  ad- 
vocated rule  by  representation,  subjecting  to  a  criticism  often 
most  acute  and  damaging  much  that  had  hitherto  been  assumed 
as  historically  certain.  Neander  called  this  work  of  Marsilio  "an 
epoch-making"  book.  It  was  certainly  far  in  advance  of  the  age. 
It  was,  indeed,  an  anticipation  of  popular  government,  and  in 


316         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

some  considerable  degree  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
and  the  Federal  Constitution.  Even  in  the  darkest  time  of  the 
old  medieval  Caesarism  the  idea  of  the  supremacy  of  law  as  the 
guarantee  of  popular  and  personal  freedom  was  frequently  as- 
serting itself. 

Let  us  remember  that  it  was  June,  1215,  three  hundred  and 
two  years  before  Luther's  theses,  that  the  barons  of  England, 
at  Runnymede,  too  feeble  to  resist  individually,  finally  formed  an 
association  to  resist  in  common,  thereby  forcing  John  Lackland, 
beaten  by  the  King  of  France,  to  swear  a  solemn  oath  that  in  the 
future  he  would  respect  all  the  rights  of  the  freemen  in  his  king- 
dom, thereby  granting  to  them  significant  and  far-reaching  con- 
cessions. 

These  assertions  of  the  democratic  principle  were  not  tri- 
umphant in  that  age,  but  they  were  there,  an  anticipation  of  the 
Protestant  revolt  under  Luther,  of  the  thirty  years'  war,  of  the 
English  revolution,  the  settlement  of  the  American  continent,  for 
the  most  part  by  Protestant  peoples,  and  the  establishment  here 
of  the  world's  largest  example  of  popular  government. 

VIII 

But  after  all  that  may  be  said  about  such  isolated  and  unor- 
ganized assertions  and  manifestations  of  the  spirit  of  democracy, 
it  was  reserved  for  the  Protestant  movement  of  the  sixteenth 
century  to  assert  and  co-ordinate  those  principles  which  have 
made  the  expression  of  that  spirit  effective  in  organized  religious 
and  civic  life.  The  religious  revolt  in  which  Protestantism  was 
born  has  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  mankind  made 
democracy  a  dominating  world  force.  Involving  as  it  does  in  the 
most  momentous  of  all  concerns  the  assertion  of  the  rights  of 
the  individual,  we  should  expect  that  Protestantism  would  be 
favorable  to  liberty.  During  its  long  history  it  has  fostered  a 
habit  of  mind  which  is  incompatible  with  a  patient  endurance  of 
tyranny  at  the  hands  of  any  civil  power,  or  of  unquestioning 
docility  and  obedience  to  any  officialism  in  the  form  of  eccles- 
iastical superiors.  Any  expression  of  that  form  of  Christian 
faith  which  constantly  inspires  a  lively  sense  of  personal  rights 
can  hardly  fail  to  bring  with  it,  eventually  at  least,  a  corre- 
sponding respect  for  the  rights  of  others  and  a  disposition  to  se- 
cure those  rights  in  the  forms  of  government  and  legislation. 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  317 

The  splendid  achievement  in  the  religious  sphere  of  winning 
back  for  men  their  freedom  in  Christ  at  once  involved  the  de- 
mand for  liberty  in  the  political  sphere.  Prior  to  the  days  of  the 
Reformation  there  was  but  little  discussion  in  Europe  regard- 
ing theories  of  government.  The  strong  men  usually  made 
the  laws  and  the  weak  ones  acquiesced.  We  have  noted  how 
that,  in  the  social,  scientific  and  literary  spheres,  the  way  had 
been  prepared  for  the  economic,  religious  and  political  revolutions 
of  the  sixteenth  and  later  centuries.  But  when  these  various 
forces  had  been  liberated  and  set  to  working  in  proper  alliance, 
the  dominion  of  that  traditionalism  which  had  engrafted  itself 
upon  the  medieval  Church,  with  its  restrictive  and  always  re- 
actionary influences,  was  thrown  off,  and  a  new  age  was  at  hand, 
marked  not  only  by  religious  reform,  but  by  the  formation  of 
independent  national  states.  One  thing  had  been  made  certain, 
viz.,  that  the  era  of  universal  temporal  and  spiritual  sovereignty 
was  outgrown,  that  the  centripetal  forces  were  no  longer  capable 
of  holding  those  of  the  centrifugal  order  in  check.  The  old 
centralization  of  the  medieval  period,  largely  as  a  consequence  of 
the  restoration  of  the  democracy  of  the  saints,  had  given  way  to 
the  decentralization  of  the  new  era  now  at  hand. 

To  the  religious  reformation  that  had  come  about  in  the 
Church  was  due  the  assertion  and  spread  of  those  principles 
which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  a  true  doctrine  of  human  rights,  a 
true  conception  of  liberty,  and  of  a  true  definition  of  the  scope 
and  limits  of  civil  authority.  Human  rights,  according  to  the 
principles  enunciated  by  Luther,  are  not  to  be  regarded  as  the 
mere  products  of  the  naturalistic  evolution  of  the  instincts  of 
self-preservation  and  self -protection,  nor  as  the  results  of  some 
imaginary  social  contract,  nor  as  the  arbitrary  bestowment  of  the 
divine  will.  They  are  more  deeply  rooted  in  principles  that  are 
religious,  essential  and  everlasting — principles  that,  if  they  were 
necessary  in  the  past  for  the  attainment  of  civil  liberty,  are  now 
necessary  to  its  preservation. 

The  elements  of  democracy  are  discernible  in  the  assertion  of 
the  autonomy  of  the  Church,  the  right  of  Christian  people  to 
govern  themselves,  under  the  sole  headship  of  Christ,  and  also 
in  the  proclamation  of  the  parity  of  the  clergy  against  the  dis- 
tinctions of  the  prelatical  hierarchy  and  the  participation  of  the 
laity  in  the  government  and  discipline  of  the  Church. 


\ 


318    LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

Luther  struck  a  powerful  blow  for  democracy,  little  as  he  him- 
self at  the  time  realized  its  full  consequences,  when,  in  his  ad- 
dress to  the  nobility  in  1520,  he  broke  down  a  wall  that  separated 
clergy  and  laity,  the  spiritual  and  the  temporal  estates,  and  de- 
clared that  all  Christians  are  truly  of  the  spiritual  estate,  and  that 
there  is  no  difference  among  them  save  of  office  only.  In  that 
famous  "primary  work"  he  demolished  the  wall  behind  which 
arrogant  and  presuming  ecclesiastics  had  taken  shelter,  and  which 
no  one  hitherto  had  dared  to  storm.  The  nobles  were  told  that 
they  were  equally  priests  with  popes  and  bishops,  and  equally  re- 
sponsible as  Christians  for  the  welfare  and  direction  of  the 
Church.  This,  in  some  degree,  explains  how  it  could  happen 
that,  when  Luther  came  before  the  imperial  diet  in  April,  1521, 
the  German  princes  refused  simply  to  execute  the  papal  judg- 
ment, as  they  were  required  to  do  by  the  canon  law,  insisting  upon 
looking  into  the  matter  for  themselves ;  and  further,  why  that 
when  the  imperial  ban  had  been  added  to  that  of  his  holiness, 
the  pope,  it  was  not  and  could  not  be  enforced  in  many  of  the 
German  states.  The  spirit  of  popular  revolt  was  rising  to  as- 
sert itself,  and  the  princes  were  becoming  aware  of  their  own 
independent  strength  and  capacity  for  asserting  their  own  rights. 
Through  all  the  writings  of  Luther  there  runs  a  steady  current 
of  thought,  which  becomes  more  and  more  defined  as  we  ap- 
proach the  decisive  year  of  1526,  and  on  to  1529,  when  at  Speyer 
the  elector  of  Saxony  and  other  princes,  together  with  fourteen 
cities,  made  their  memorable  protest  to  the  effect  that  the  doctrine 
of  the  priesthood  of  believers  should  find  expression  in  the  out- 
ward organization  of  the  Church;  that  all  true  Christians  have 
inalienable  and  indefeasible  rights  and  duties  which  they  share 
equally,  and  that  in  the  body  of  Christian  people  is  to  be  found 
the  source  of  all  authority  and  organization. 

When  men  came  to  judge  for  themselves,  and  act  independently 
in  Church  affairs,  they  were  no  longer  likely  to  manifest  a  slavish 
spirit  in  the  political  sphere.  That  religious  liberty,  which  is  fun- 
damentally the  right  of  the  individual  Christian  to  his  own  in- 
terpretation of  what  the  Holy  Scriptures  teach  as  to  faith  and 
duty,  was  a  great  factor  from  the  hour  of  its  reinstatement  in  not 
only  religious,  but  civil  liberty  also. 

Thus  the  Reformation  heritage  is  a  heritage  of  freedom,  per- 
haps its  most  easily  and  most  commonly  observed  feature.     On 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  319 

its  very  forefront  is  written  the  right  of  private  judgment — the  > 
right  to  think  for  one's  self  in  religion,  and  to  worship  God  ac-  / 
cording  to  the  dictates  of  one's  own  conscience.     The  rights  of  j 
men  in  civil  government,  it  very  soon  became  clear  in  the  six-  ' 
teenth  century,  were  inherent  in  the  great  movement  headed  by 
Luther,  and  have  been  developed  since  that  time.     At  the  prob- 
lem of  how  to  make  men  free  religiously,  politically  and  indus- 
trially we  are  still  working;  and  liberty  to  think  in  religion  now, 
as  in  earlier  times,  leads  the  way  to  liberty  to  think  in  all  other 
matters.     Prof.  Lavelaye,  of  the  University  at  Liege,  has  de- 
clared, after  long  special  study  given  to  his  theme:     "The  prin- 
ciple of  political  and  religious  freedom,  and  that  of  the  sovereignty 
of   the  people,   issue   logically    from  the   Reformation.     It   has 
everywhere  been  its  natural  fruit.     The  Reformation  everywhere 
incited  to  energetic  demands  for  natural  rights — freedom,  tolera- 
tion, equality  and  popular  sovereignty." 

Guizot  offers  as  an  adequate  characterization  of  the  Reforma- 
tion this  statement:  "It  was  an  insurrection  of  the  human 
mind  against  absolute  power  in  the  spiritual  order."  His  subse- 
quent analysis  makes  important  distinctions,  which  vindicate  its 
aims  and  results  in  the  main,  but  which  fail  to  single  out  the  ful- 
crum of  its  whole  spiritual  leverage  on  society.  That  fulcrum 
is  discovered  in  the  statement  of  the  great  Scotch  scholar  and 
apologist,  the  late  Dr.  James  Orr,  a  thinker  of  deeper  penetra- 
tion into  the  underlying  causes  of  modern  progress  than  Guizot. 
Dr.  Orr  says :  "The  sinner,  penitent  for  his  sins,  has  the  right  of 
free  access  to  God  without  intervention  of  priest,  Church,  sacra- 
ment or  anything  else  to  stand  between  him  and  his  Maker,  and 
God  freely  forgives  and  accepts  everyone  laying  hold  on  His 
promise  in  the  Gospel,  without  works,  satisfaction  or  merits  of 
his  own,  but  solely  on  the  ground  of  Christ's  atoning  death  and 
perfect  righteousness,  to  which  faith  cleaves  as  the  only  ground 
of  its  confidence." 

Thus  it  has  come  to  pass  that  a  reinstatement  among  the 
peoples  of  Europe  of  the  evangelical  conception  of  the  doctrine 
of  salvation — that  which  was  primarily  religious  in  its  character 
— has  had  important  bearings,  not  only  on  religious  life  and  doc- 
trines, but  also  on  the  constitutional  history  of  great  peoples. 
Religious  convictions  in  the  sixteenth  century  have  worked  out 
vast  civic  results  among  the  best  peoples  of  the  earth.     Borgeand 


320         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

;;bas  shown  that  modern  democracy  is  the  child  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, that  the  two  hammers  used  to  break  the  authority  of  the 
medieval  Church  were  freedom  of  inquiry  and  the  priesthood  of 
all  believers;  that  these  two  principles  contained  in  them  the 
germs  of  the  political  revolution  which  in  our  time  has  come  to 
pass.  These  truths  made  the  community  the  visible  center  of  the 
Church,  and  the  people  the  principal  factor  in  social  life. 

Matters  had  moved  forward  with  great  rapidity  from  the  days 
when  Huss  and  Wiclif  had  been  the  exponents  of  the  rising  spirit 
of  revolt.  In  the  last  half  of  the  fourteenth  century  Wiclif  had 
held  that  the  Church  had  no  right  to  interfere  in  secular  matters, 
but  only  in  such  matters  as  involved  morals  and  the  dogmas  of 
the  Church.  He  advanced,  step  by  step,  until  he  was  prepared 
to  repudiate  transubstantiation,  to  the  declaration  that  papal  in- 
dulgences were  futile,  and  to  the  affirmation  that  the  Bible  was 
all-sufficient  as  a  rule  of  faith  and  practice. 

The  pope,  too,  encountered  difficulties  of  various  kinds  with 
his  own  children.  In  1521,  as  an  example  of  his  troubles,  he 
named  Henry  VIII,  of  England,  the  "Defender  of  the  Faith/' 
and  soon  after  this  much-married  and  honored  son  of  the  Church 
proceeded  to  divorce  one  wife  in  defiance  of  the  "Holy  Father" 
of  Christendom,  because  he  was  stubbornly  set  upon  wedding  a 
younger  and  more  attractive  woman.  Francis  I,  another  son  of 
the  Church,  declared  to  be  "the  most  Christian  king,"  makes  an 
alliance  with  the  detested  and  troublesome  Turk,  while  yet  an- 
other, Charles  V,  said  to  be  "the  most  Catholic  of  monarchs," 
sacks  Rome  and  imprisons  the  pope.  And  when,  in  1521,  Luther 
stood  before  the  "Holy  Roman  Empire"  at  the  Diet  of  Worms, 
that  historic  scene  which  was  one  of  the  most  impressive  in  the 
annals  of  mankind,  great  contrasts  were  presented — that,  for 
example,  between  solidarity  and  individualism,  that  between 
authority  and  liberty,  and  that  between  an  arrogant  ecclesiasti- 
cism  and  the  true  religion  taught  by  our  Lord  and  His  apostles. 

Some  changes  had  been  brought  about  since,  in  humble  submis- 
sion to  Rome's  claim  to  temporal  as  well  as  spiritual  sovereignty, 
Henry  II,  one  of  the  greatest  of  English  monarchs,  did  penance 
at  the  tomb  of  Becket,  and  there  submitted  meekly  to  a  flogging- 
administered  by  monks ;  and  from  the  day  when  we  read  of  a 
German  emperor  humbly  holding  the  stirrup  for  Pope  Gregory 
VII  to  mount  his  horse,  while  the  same  renowned  and  self-willed 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  321 

successor  of  Peter  and  proclaimed  "vicar  of  Christ"  compelled 
Henry  IV,  of  Germany,  to  wait  for  three  days,  while  standing  in 
the  Alpine  snows  and  clad  only  in  the  scant  garments  of  a  peni- 
tent, before  being  admitted  to  the  castle  of  Canossa  to  ask  for 
absolution.  The  struggle  for  freedom  was  long  and  eventful 
from  the  day  that  the  theses  were  posted  on  the  Wittenberg 
church  door,  and  attended  with  receding  tides  of  victory  and 
defeat.  But  with  the  peace  of  Westphalia  in  1648  Protestantism 
and  its  inherent  principles  of  progress  at  last  had  triumphed  over 
ultramontanism,  stagnation  and  repression.  In  consequence  of 
the  long  and  memorable  war  of  thirty  years,  the  conflicting  claims 
and  legal  rights  of  Catholic  royalists  and  Protestant  principles 
were  at  last  adjusted.  Religious  liberty,  with  all  that  it  involved 
for  the  future  freedom  of  mankind,  had  at  last  gained  legal  recog- 
nition and  was  placed  upon  impregnable  foundations.  It  drew 
a  final  line  of  demarcation  between  the  two  views  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion  which  divided  Europe.  Germany  had  been  deci- 
mated, the  losses  of  the  civic  population  being  almost  incredible. 
The  moral  decadence  was  appalling.  Physically,  the  land  could 
have  suffered  no  more.  But  one  inestimable  advantage  had  been 
achieved,  whatever  else  had  been  lost — Protestantism,  with  all 
that  ensued  for  Germany  from  the  fact,  had  been  saved.  The 
peace  of  Westphalia,  which  marked  the  close  of  the  first  great 
era  in  the  history  of  Protestantism,  had  the  force  of  a  definite 
proclamation  that  the  religious  reformation  and  revolution  of 
the  sixteenth  century  was  to  hold  its  ground.  Europe,  at  the  end 
of  that  disastrous  struggle  to  maintain  the  right  of  the  new  views 
to  live,  had  subscribed  to  a  justification  of  Protestantism. 

IX 

But  the  principles  and  expressions  of  freedom  noted  above 
made  their  progress  in  the  face  of  the  principles  and  the  hostile 
attitude  of  the  papacy.  The  habit  of  mind  which  the  Roman 
Catholic  training  tends  to  produce  leads  to  servility  on  the  part 
of  the  subject  toward  the  ruler,  and,  especially  where  an  alliance 
is  maintained  between  the  Church  and  the  state,  between  the  sov- 
ereign and  the  priest.  The  papal  theory  is  based  upon  the  false 
assumption  that  men's  minds  are  to  be  subject  to  clerical  su- 
premacy, and  the  clerical  power  of  the  medieval   Church  was 


322         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

never  the  sincere  advocate  of  liberty  of  conscience.  What  the 
great  popes  of  the  Middle  Ages  aimed  at  was  not  liberty  of 
conscience  for  the  people,  but  a  vast  imperial  dominion  for  them- 
selves and  the  clergy,  a  dominion  having  very  little  that  was  re- 
ligious in  it,  but  always  using  religion  as  the  instrument  of  its 
power.  The  medieval  theory  of  the  Church  and  the  empire  was 
based  upon  the  supposition  that  the  emperor  and  all  his  subjects 
were  Christians  and  members  of  the  one  Holy  Catholic  and  apos- 
tolic Church.  The  theory  of  the  relation  of  the  one  to  the  other 
may  be  stated  after  the  interpretation  given  by  James  Bryce,  the 
author  of  the  valuable  historical  monograph  called  "The  Holy 
Roman  Empire."  ''Christendom  forms  one  great  whole,  in  which 
there  are  two  chief  functionaries,  the  pope  and  the  emperor,  each 
in  his  own  way  its  head.  Both  of  these  powers  are  instituted  by 
God,  the  one  being  ordained  to  rule  over  men's  bodily  and  the 
other  over  their  spiritual  interests.  Both  spring  from  the  old 
Roman  Empire,  which,  having  become  Christian,  was  at  once  an 
empire  and  a  church.  In  one  sense  the  Church  enfolds  the  em- 
pire ;  in  another,  the  empire  enfolds  the  Church.  The  two  forms 
must  support  each  other,  the  one  being  necessary  to  the  other. 
The  emperor  is  to  sanction  the  pope's  election,  and  the  pope 
crowns  the  emperor.  The  emperor  is  to  protect  the  pope  and  the 
clergy  and  the  courts  of  the  Church,  and  these  are  all  to  support 
the  authority  of  the  emperor  over  his  subjects."  This  was  the 
theory,  which,  while  it  did  not  wholly  correspond  to  the  fact,  had 
much  in  it,  considered  as  an  ideal,  that  was  sound. 

But  the  Church  early  began  to  encroach  upon  the  sphere  of  the 
secular  power  and  soon  altogether  ceased  to  be  a  spiritual  power. 
It  became  an  earthly  kingdom  upholding  itself  by  spirtual  sanc- 
tions. In  this  secularizing  program  it  came  to  be  further  held 
that  all  temporal  jurisprudence  was  bound  to  frame  its  decrees 
with  deference  to  the  superior  ecclesiastical  power.  Thus  a  vast 
ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  arose,  the  rival  and  often  the  master  of 
the  imperial  and  national  jurisdictions,  and  by  and  by  claiming 
to  have  supreme  and  autocratic  authority  over  all  things.  Instead 
of  the  idealism  of  the  "Holy  Roman  Empire,"  we  have  two  rival 
temporal  powers,  each  aspiring,  though  on  different  grounds,  to 
universal  dominion.  In  his  controversy  with  Frederick  II,  Pope 
Innocent  IV  says  that  Christ  has  given  to  the  pope  not  only  the 
pontifical,   but   also  the   regal   power,   having  committed   to    St. 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  323 

Peter  and  his  successors  the  reins  both  of  the  earthly  and  the 
heavenly  empire,  as  is  sufficiently  shown  by  the  plurality  of  the 
keys;  while  at  the  jubilee  of  the  year  1300  Boniface  VIII,  clad 
in  imperial  robes,  seated  on  a  throne,  and  crowned  with  the  dia- 
dem, laying  his  hand  on  his  half-drawn  sword,  said  to  the  pil- 
grims:  "Ego,  Ego  Sum  Imperator."  Thus  at  last  the  vicar  of 
Christ,  the  successor  of  the  fisherman  Peter,  had  come  to  be  the 
ruler  of  the  world.  The  Church  became  more  and  more  hierarchi- 
cal in  its  organization.  It  recognized  and  jealously  guarded  a 
"spiritual  order"  of  popes,  cardinals  and  priests,  in  distinction 
from  the  "secular  order"  of  kings,  princes  and  peasants.  All  of 
the  authority  came  down  from  above,  and  the  laity  had  neither 
voice  nor  hand  in  the  affairs  of  the  Church.  It  was  strictly  a  gov- 
ernment by  the  priestly  classes  and  one  that  was  highly  despotic 
in  spirit.  In  Luther's  day,  in  the  period  of  this  ecclesiastical  im- 
perialism, the  citizen  of  the  state  had  no  kind  of  liberty  in  his  re- 
ligious faith  and  convictions.  He  was  expected  to  believe  as  the 
state,  under  the  superior  direction  of  the  pope,  required  him  to 
believe.  Thus  only  could  he  believe  and  not  otherwise.  In  har- 
mony with  such  unwarranted  and  unhallowed  claims  and  assump- 
tions, the  Church  of  Rome  always  has  been  the  natural  ally  and 
supporter  of  arbitrary  principles  of  government.  The  prevailing 
sentiment,  the  instinctive  feeling,  in  that  Church,  is  that  the  body 
of  the  people  are  incapable  of  thinking  for  themselves  in  the 
great  concerns  of  religion,  and  that  to  entrust  them  with  such 
prerogatives  as  private  judgment,  freedom  of  conscience,  freedom 
of  faith,  would  at  once  imperil  the  stability  of  ecclesiastical  con- 
trol. In  all  such  matters,  the  whole  medieval  history,  even  down 
to  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  is  the  history  of  the  growth  of 
despotic  authority  and  of  the  centralization  of  power,  always  ex- 
pressing itself  in  that  worst  form  of  bondage  in  the  world — that 
which  suppresses  freedom  of  intellect,  conscience  and  faith. 

It  is  true  that  the  Church  of  Rome  has  shown  a  remarkable 
capacity  to  accommodate  itself  to  any  of  the  various  types  of 
political  society.  Her  doctors  have  at  times  preached  an  extreme 
theory  of  popular  rights  and  sovereignty  of  the  people.  While 
the  state  is  subordinate  to  the  Church  any  form  of  government 
may  be  tolerated.  That  religious  persecution  has  sometimes 
darkened  the  history  of  some  forms  of  Protestantism,  and  that 
some  of   the  leaders   in  the  period   of   the   Reformation    failed 


324         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

sometimes  to  recognize  distinctly  the  principle  of  liberty  of  con- 
science, must  be  admitted.  That  occasionally  Protestants  have 
favored  despotism  and  that  Roman  Catholics  sometimes  have 
been  known  to  advocate  the  sovereignty  of  the  people,  does  not 
change  the  innermost  nature  and  tendency  of  the  two  systems  of 
Romanism  and  Protestantism.  History  abundantly  verifies  the 
proposition  that  Protestantism  is  favorable  to  civil  and  religious 
freedom,  and  thus  promotes  the  attainment  of  the  multiplied  ad- 
vantages which  freedom  brings  in  its  train.  Protestantism  from 
its  beginning  has  held  to  liberty  as  its  center  of  gravity,  while  in 
Romanism  that  center  has  always  been  authority.  The  great 
spirits  of  Protestantism  have  never  been  content  simply  to  protest 
without  going  on  to  affirm  and  confess.  They  have  not  only 
claimed  the  freedom  to  think  for  themselves,  but  the  right  to  be- 
lieve, to  contend  for  and  to  formulate  their  beliefs  in  unam- 
biguous confessions  of  faith.  It  is  a  simple  fact  of  history  that 
wherever  the  principles  of  the  Reformation  have  been  allowed  to 
work  themselves  out  to  their  logical  conclusions,  there  has  come 
freedom  of  speech,  freedom  of  thought,  freedom  of  worship  and 
of  conscience.  In  lands  that  have  been  dominated  by  Rome  it 
has  not  been  so  as  long  as  the  Church  was  permitted  to  dominate 
and  maintain  her  influence  and  cany  out  her  principles.  In  this 
clay  wherever  statesmen  of  the  Catholic  faith  in  Catholic  coun- 
tries have  favored  free  government  they  have  been  opposed  by 
the  Roman  hierarchy,  and  wherever  they  have  succeeded  in  estab- 
lishing free  institutions  it  has  been  in  the  face  of  the  opposition 
of  their  ecclesiastical  superiors.  That  is  the  natural  outcome  of 
the  autocratic  conception  of  the  power  of  the  papacy.  History 
furnishes  its  own  long  commentary  on  how  thoroughly  the  old 
hierarchy,  which  reaches  from  Leo  the  Great  to  Benedict  XV, 
has  made  effective  its  repressive  and  autocratic  principles. 

The  long  and  heroic  endurance  of  the  German  people  in  the 
fearful  struggle  of  the  thirty  years'  war,  the  long  and  successful 
struggle  for  independence  in  the  Netherlands,  the  conflict  which 
established  English  liberty  against  the  despotic  influence  of  the 
House  of  Stuart,  the  establishment  of  the  American  republic,  are 
events  so  intimately  connected  with  Protestantism,  and  so  de- 
pendent upon  it,  that  they  are  not  only  indications  of  the  true 
spirit  and  genius  of  the  principles  of  the  Reformation,  but  also 
show  what  fearful  struggles  were  required  to  break  the  power  of 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  325 

papal  dominion  and  enable  men  to  walk  in  that  liberty  which  is  the 
inalienable  right  of  mankind — that  liberty  of  conscience  and 
worship  which  so  late  as  the  time  of  Pius  IX,  in  an  address  to 
all  bishops,  has  been  branded  as  an  error  to  be  abhorred  and 
shunned  as  the  contagion  of  a  pestilence. 

Speaking  of  the  contrasts  between  Catholicism  and  Protes- 
tantism, Luthardt  declares  that  "the  difference  consists  in  opposite 
mental  tendencies;  and  these  again  have  their  roots  in  opposite 
views  of  religion."  "The  opposite  mental  tendencies  are  often 
designated  as  authority  and  liberty.  The  former  advocates  legit- 
imacy ;  the  latter  the  rights  of  historical  progress."  There  can  be 
no  religion  without  a  Church.  There  can  be  no  Church  without 
a  government.  There  can  be  no  government  without  a  sovereign 
power,  which  definitely  and  without  appeal  sets  the  limits  to  all 
controversy  and  debate,  which  defines  the  frontier  beyond  which 
liberty  of  opinion  and  the  rights  of  the  individual  conscience  may 
not  pass.  This  is  the  mental  attitude  of  the  papal  system.  Popes 
may  come  and  popes  may  go,  but  this  attitude  remains  the  same. 
The  weapons  of  excommunication  and  interdict,  once  all  power- 
ful, are  now  largely  rendered  ineffective.  The  Roman  thunder- 
bolt, used  with  such  autocratic  brutality  by  Gregory  VII,  is  now 
silenced,  and  never  again  shall  any  sovereign  travel  in  humiliation 
to  Canossa.  In  every  modern  nation  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
is  confronted  with  civil  and  political  institutions  and  laws  which 
she  is  powerless  to  assail  and  which  she  cannot  sincerely  accept. 
But  her  mental  attitude  goes  on  unchanged,  the  logical  outcome 
of  which  always  must  be  an  absolute  government,  a  hierarchy 
which  oppresses  the  conscience,  which  is  the  hard  and  fast  enemy 
of  all  free  and  spontaneous  inspiration,  the  promulgator  of  out- 
worn dogmas  and  unscriptural  claims,  and  having  for  its  official 
head  a  man  who  arrogates  to  himself  the  sovereign  right  to  com- 
mand the  conscience,  and  in  the  doing  of  which  he  is  assumed 
to  be  unerring.  It  is,  accordingly,  no  matter  of  surprise  to  find  a 
man  such  as  Hartpole  Lecky — a  man  far  removed  from  Luthardt 
in  his  theological  views — as  he  contemplates  this  unchanged 
mental  attitude  of  the  papacy,  declaring  that  the  Catholic  Church 
cannot  possibly  harmonize  with  the  new  views  of  freedom,  be- 
gotten by  the  spirit  and  teachings  of  the  Reformation.  "It  is," 
says  he,  "contrary  to  her  genius,  to  her  traditions  and  to  her 
teaching;  resting  upon  the  principle  of  authority,  she  instinctive!}' 


326         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

assimilates  with  those  forms  of  government  that  must  foster 
habits  of  mind  she  inculcates.  Intensely  dogmatic  in  her  teach- 
ing, she  naturally  endeavors  to  arrest  by  the  hand  of  power  the 
circulation  of  what  she  believes  to  be  error,  and  she,  therefore, 
allies  herself  with  the  political  system  under  which  alone  such 
suppression  is  possible.  Asserting  as  the  very  basis  of  her  teach- 
ing the  binding  authority  of  the  past,  she  cannot  assent  to  political 
doctrines  which  are  in  fact  a  direct  negation  of  the  uniform 
teaching  of  the  ancient  Church." 

This  interpretation  of  such  a  qualified  historian  as  Lecky  is 
based  upon  a  thorough  knowledge  of  papal  principles  and  their 
application  in  the  affairs  of  the  state.  The  doctrine  that  the  theo- 
logical system  of  the  Church  is  to  be  received  in  the  bulk  and 
solely  on  the  authority  of  the  Church  has  never  been  conducive 
to  popular  aspirations  of  any  kind  among  the  people.  Romanism 
has  always  sought,  in  harmony  with  its  age-long  principles,  to 
shut  out  the  modern  world  of  thought  from  the  spiritual  life  of 
the  nations,  and  to  bring  back  the  pre-Reformation  circle  of  ideas. 
The  rigid  unchangeableness  of  its  principles  and  its  stern  adher- 
ance  to  them  through  all  the  stormy  years  of  its  history  has  at 
least  this  merit,  that  it  has  been  imposing  to  both  unbelievers  and 
Protestants.  It  has  always  shown  a  remarkable  flexibility  of 
method,  but  at  all  times  and  in  all  places  it  acts  according  to  the 
same  unalterable  maxims  and  magisterial  principles. 

Protestantism,  however,  on  the  other  hand,  in  all  of  its  true 
expressions  has  shown  a  natural  bias  toward  liberty  and  de- 
mocracy. Special  circumstances  have  occasionally  modified,  but 
seldom  or  never  altogether  reversed,  the  tendencies  of  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  both  Romanism  and  Protestantism.  The 
principles  embodied  in  the  two  systems  have  been  the  masterful 
influences  in  the  production  of  types  of  civilization.  In  conse- 
quence of  these  benefits  of  the  Reformation,  the  contrast  between 
Catholic  and  Protestant  civilization  has  been  so  evident  that  it 
has  been  the  subject  of  frequent  reflection.  Where  Rome  has 
held  undisputed  sway  most  true  are  Macaulay's  well-known  and 
striking  words,  when  in  his  History  of  England  he  draws  his 
famous  historic  comparison,  a  verification  of  the  memorable 
words  of  Albert  I,  upon  his  accession  to  the  throne  of  England : 
"Entirely  to  the  intellectual  and  moral  forces  does  a  nation  owe 
the  fruitfulness  of  its  prosperity."     Macaulay  said :  "The  love- 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  327 

liest  and  most  fertile  provinces  of  Europe  have,  under  her  rule, 
been  sunk  in  poverty,  in  political  servitude,  and  in  intellectual 
torpor,  while  Protestant  countries,  once  proverbial  for  sterility 
and  barbarism,  have  been  turned  by  skill  and  industry  into  gar- 
dens, and  can  boast  of  a  long  list  of  heroes  and  statesmen,  philos- 
ophers and  poets.  Whoever,  knowing  what  Italy  and  Scotland 
naturally  are,  and  what,  four  hundred  years  ago  they  actually 
were,  shall  now  compare  the  country  around  Rome  with  the 
country  around  Edinburgh,  will  be  able  to  form  some  judgment 
as  to  the  tendency  of  papal  domination.  The  descent  of  Spain, 
once  the  first  among  the  monarchies,  to  the  lowest  depths  of 
degradation;  the  elevation  of  Holland,  in  spite  of  many  natural 
disadvantages,  to  a  position  such  as  no  commonwealth  so  small 
has  ever  reached,  teach  the  same  lesson.  Whoever  passes  in 
Germany  from  a  Roman  Catholic  to  a  Protestant  principality,  in 
Switzerland  from  a  Roman  Catholic  to  a  Protestant  canton,  in 
Ireland  from  a  Roman  Catholic  to  a  Protestant  county,  finds  that 
he  has  passed  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  grade  of  civilization.  On 
the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  the  same  law  prevails.  The  Prot- 
estants of  the  United  States  have  left  far  behind  them  the  Roman 
Catholics  of  Mexico,  Peru  and  Brazil.  The  Roman  Catholics  of 
lower  Canada  remain  inert,  while  the  whole  continent  around 
them  is  in  a  ferment  with  Protestant  activity  and  enterprise. 
The  French  have  doubtless  shown  an  energy  and  intelligence 
which,  even  when  misdirected,  have  justly  entitled  them  to  be 
called  a  great  people.  But  this  apparent  exception,  when  ex- 
amined, will  be  found  to  confirm  the  rule,  for  in  no  country  that 
is  called  Roman  Catholic  has  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  during 
several  generations,  possessed  so  little  authority  as  in  France." 
In  their  habits,  principles,  hopes  and  the  character  of  their  people? 
India  and  China  are  what  they  are  as  the  result  of  paganism. 
Ireland,  Italy,  Spain,  Portugal,  Mexico,  the  Central  and  South 
American  states  have  become  what  they  are  largely  because  of 
the  dominance  of  Romanism.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  conceive 
of  England,  Scotland,  Wales,  Germany,  Switzerland,  Norway, 
Sweden,  Denmark.  Iceland  and  the  states  of  North  America  dis- 
sociated from  their  Protestantism,  which  has  made  of  these 
peoples  the  most  progressive  on  the  earth,  the  leaders  among  the 
nations  in  the  promotion  of  the  highest  and  noblest  factors  in 
civilization.     The  Reformation  somehow  did  succeed  in  restoring 


328         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

a  spirit  that  for  centuries  had  been  lost  to  the  Church,  and  in  con- 
sequence of /  that  restoration  gave  a  new  tone  and  direction  to 
civilization. 

In  his  interesting  work  on  the  Reformation,  in  which  he  em- 
phasizes as  the  greatest  of  all  gifts  the  liberating  spirit  which  that, 
movement  poured  out  over  the  world,  Prof.  Henry  C.  Vedder 
says :  "The  Reformation  is  important  for  us  today,  not  so  much 
for  what  is  immediately  accomplished,  as  for  what  it  made  pos- 
sible. The  new  ideals  which  it  offered  have  ever  since  ruled  the 
world." 

Interpretations  might  be  multiplied  almost  indefinitely,  and  all 
in  the  same  line,  evidencing  that  throughout  Christendom  what- 
ever advance  has  been  made  in  knowledge,  in  freedom  and  in  the 
arts  of  life  has  been  made  in  spite  of  the  principles  of  the  papacy, 
and  as  the  direct  results  of  the  new  principles  of  the  freedom  of 
conscience,  liberty  of  private  judgment,  the  sole  authority  of  the 
Scriptures  and  the  priesthood  of  all  believers,  contended  for  by 
Luther  and  containing  logical  implications  which  have  led  to  far- 
reaching  results  not  even  anticipated  by  the  greatest  of  the  re- 
formers. In  the  political  as  in  the  spiritual  emancipation  of 
Europe  in  the  sixteenth  century,  Luther  was  the  pioneer.  He 
came  teaching  that  "God  has  ordained  two  governments  among 
the  children  of  Adam — the  reign  of  God  under  Christ,  and  the 
reign  of  the  world  under  the  civil  magistrate,  each  with  its  own 
laws  and  rights.  Over  the  soul  God  can  and  will  allow  no  one  to 
rule  but  Himself.  Civil  government  is  confined  to  external  and 
civil  affairs." 

It  is  of  this  great  declaration  of  emancipation  that  Dr.  Philip 
Schaff  says  that,  "It  sounds  almost  like  a  prophetic  anticipation 
of  the  American  separation  of  Church  and  state,"  while  the  dis- 
tinguished English  preacher,  Dr.  W.  J.  Dawson,  has  affirmed  that 
"The  awakening  of  the  democratic  instinct  in  the  religion  of 
Europe  came  through  Luther." 

Thus  has  it  come  to  pass  that  the  mightiest  force  which  makes 
for  freedom  is  the  soul  in  direct  relationship  with  God.  The 
Reformation  found  the  Roman  hierarchy  between  the  soul  and 
God,  and  hence  its  vast  and  complete  domination  of  the  world. 
From  ruler  to  peasant,  the  subjection  was  well-nigh  absolute. 
That  great  movement  restored  the  rights  of  the  soul  to  answer  di- 
rectly to  God,  and  the  independence  of  man  from  despotic  power 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  329 

is  found  in  that  fact.  Luther  broke  the  fetters  of  that  ecclesiasti- 
cism  which  had  usurped  all  authority — social,  religious  and  civil — 
and  the  era  of  modern  freedom  in  its  manifold  aspects  was  in- 
augurated. How  great  a  force  the  soul  and  its  concerns  were  in 
this  movement  is  set  forth  in  a  striking  passage  in  Green's  "His- 
tory of  the  English  People :"  "The  mighty  strife  of  good  and  evil 
within  the  soul,  which  had  overawed  the  imagination  of  dram- 
atist and  poet,  became  the  one  spiritual  conception  in  the  mind  of 
the  Puritan.  To  him  religion,  in  its  deepest  and  innermost  sense, 
had  to  do,  not  with  churches,  but  with  the  individual  soul.  It 
was  each  Christian  man  who  held  in  his  power  the  issues  of  life 
and  death.  It  was  in  each  individual  conscience  that  the  strife 
was  waged  between  heaven  and  hell.  And  it  was  in  the  creation 
of  such  a  temper  as  this  that  Puritanism  gave  its  noblest  gift  to 
English  politics,  and  a  gift  hardly  less  noble  to  society  at  large 
in  its  conception  of  equality.  Their  common  calling,  their  com- 
mon brotherhood  in  Christ,  annihilated  in  the  minds  of  the  Puri- 
tans that  overpowering  sense  of  social  distinctions  which  char- 
acterized the  age  of  Elizabeth." 

Thus  out  of  the  deepest  springs  of  the  soul  in  its  personal  and 
direct  fellowship  with,  and  accountability  to  God,  have  sprung 
those  great  conceptions  of  equality,  brotherhood  and  liberty  which 
constitute  the  very  trinity  of  human  freedom.  Liberating  men 
from  spiritual  bondage  to  Rome,  and  restoring  them  to  the 
authority  of  the  Scriptures,  started  forces  to  work  that  were 
fraught  with  vast  consequences  for  all  times  and  places. 


X 

The  good  fight  waged  for  these  victorious  principles  in  the  era 
of  the  Reformation  is  never  to  be  dissociated  from  the  genius  of 
a  particular  people.  Racial  features  of  strength  and  assertive- 
ness  had  much  to  do  with  the  reception  of  those  principles  and 
their  propagation  and  co-ordination.  They  made  their  way  even 
in  the  face  of  strong  and  fanatical  opposition  with  a  group  of  na- 
tions, including  the  Germans,  the  Dutch,  the  Scandinavians  and 
the  Anglo-Saxons,  while  their  appeal  to  Latin  and  Slavonic 
peoples,  for  the  most  part,  fell  upon  deaf  ears.  It  is  a  fact  of 
wide  significance  that  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  Lutheran 
movement  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  some  implied  features  of 


3JU         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

the  movement,  at  once  showed  strong  natural  affinities  with  the 
veracious  Teutonic  mind  of  that  day,  which  very  soon  began  to 
show  its  impatience  with  the  lies  and  frauds  so  widely  dominant 
when  Luther  was  born  in  an  humble  Germanic  home.  The  Teu- 
ton was  industrious,  honest  and  liberty-loving,  and  was  possessed 
of  a  keen  sense  of  justice  and  humanity  that  rendered  him  not 
well  adapted  to  persuasion  by  physical  force.  Of  this  stock,  it 
has  been  said  by  a  leading  Scotch  thinker  and  theologian,  that  it 
is  "naturally  Protestant."  "Partly  by  the  very  discipline  of  the 
Church,"  says  a  distinguished  English  writer,  "the  Germanic 
races  arrived  at  moral  independence  and  national  consciousness, 
and  so  outgrew  the  kind  of  authority  by  which  they  had  been 
trained."  "With  the  growth  of  the  sense  of  individual  responsi- 
bility, a  development  of  national  individuality  kept  pace.  Thence 
grew  the  conviction  that  no  corporation  could  represent  the  whole 
of  Christianity,  with  the  result  that  before  ever  Protestantism 
came  into  existence,  its  problem  was  already  set.  It  was  the 
problem  of  finding  room  in  religion  for  the  autonomy  of  the  in- 
dividual and  the  autonomy  of  the  state." 

The  Saxon  blood  was  not  friendly  to  foreign  dictation.  "The 
Latin  races,"  says  the  late  Dean  Hulbert,  of  the  University  of 
Chicago,  "seem  to  like  to  be  tyrannized  over,  and  to  be  trodden 
under  foot,  but  the  Teutonic  peoples  are  made  of  better  stuff." 
Such  a  mental  attitude  produced  a  growing  respect  for  the  rights 
of  the  individual,  and  the  ampler  room  afforded  for  the  unfolding 
of  his  powers  and  for  realizing  his  aspirations.  It  gave  rise  to 
such  ideals  and  achievements  in  the  field  of  civil  organization  as 
would  have  been  impossible  under  the  dominance  of  any  other 
attitude  than  that  of  the  assertion  of  personal  rights  with  re- 
spect to  religion,  the  highest  concern  of  man.  The  new  views  set 
forth  by  Luther  at  once  fostered  a  habit  of  mind  among  the  Ger- 
man people  that  was  incompatible  with  a  patient  endurance  of 
tyranny  at  the  hands  of  the  civil  powers. 

It  was  this  mental  attitude  in  the  character  of  that  people  in 
Luther's  day,  let  it  be  noted,  which  especially  qualified  them  for 
taking  the  lead  in  the  great  work  of  the  Reformation.  Indeed, 
that  movement  could  not  have  been  made  successful  among  any 
others  of  the  contemporary  peoples  of  Europe.  The  primary  char- 
acter of  Luther's  views  entered  the  Teutonic  man  and  made  his 
thought   anew.     A   serious   and   thinking  people,   who   reasoned 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  331 

slowly,  they  loved  freedom,  and  were  not  content  to  be  longer 
cajoled  with  trifles,  cheated  by  impositions,  or  subjected  to  op- 
pression. It  was  from  such  a  people  as  this  that  Luther  sprang, 
and  among  which  he  set  forth  his  evangelical  principles  and 
fought  his  great  battles.  The  influences  of  the  new  movement 
very  soon  began  to  manifest  themselves  among  the  German 
people.  There  was  a  marked  contrast  between  pre-Lutheran 
Germany  and  post-Lutheran  Germany.  In  the  former  the  rights 
and  voice  of  the  people  were  very  limited  in  scope.  With  the 
beginning  of  the  new  religious  movement  a  change  set  in.  The 
people  had  sprung  suddenly  into  an  atmosphere  of  independence 
There  will  be  temporary  evil,  as  has  been  said,  when  a  house  is 
torn  down,  before  the  constructive  work  can  be  done  upon  the 
house  that  is  to  take  its  place.  As  we  have  shown  at  another 
place,  the  violations  of  law  and  order  when  the  new  liberty, 
among  a  liberty-loving  people,  was  made  an  "occasion  of  the 
flesh,"  in  outbreaks  of  both  social  and  religious  fanaticism,  were 
no  proper  part  of  the  reformatory  movement.  The  turbulence 
of  the  agitator  is  a  usual,  if  deplorable,  adjunct  of  the  breaking  up 
of  an  old  order  and  the  attempt  to  introduce  and  maintain  a  new 
one.  It  wras  a  departure  from  the  real  principle  of  the  Reforma- 
tion that  produced  Zwickau  "prophets,"  Munzerites,  and  other 
disturbing  factors  among  fanatics  who  were  anxious  to  throw  off 
the  restraints  of  law,  both  human  and  divine. 

But  in  the  face  of  all  such  temporary  excesses  the  great  truth 
remains,  that,  as  one  consequence  of  men  being  invested  with  the 
privilege  of  thinking  for  themselves,  the  new  movement,  with 
all  of  its  implied  results,  was  invested  with  a  momentum  that  was 
resistless.  Post-Lutheran  Germany  had  ascended  to  a  higher 
plane,  from  which  it  was  not  to  be  dislodged  by  imperial  man- 
dates or  papal  excommunications. 

The  necessity  for  a  change  was  urgent.  The  Germany  in 
which  the  young  son  of  old  John  Luther  grew  to  manhood  pre- 
sented melancholy  aspects,  even  though  it  was  about  to  assume 
the  leadership  in  a  movement  that  was  to  divide  the  ages  and 
cause  history  to  move  in  new  channels.  But  notwithstanding  the 
importance  of  the  movement  that  country  was  to  foster  and  lead, 
the  Germany  in  which  the  young  Luther  pursued  his  studies  in 
the  latter  years  of  the  fifteenth  century  was  a  pitiable  land. 
From  the  middle  of  that  centurv  on  it  was  moving:  forward  to  a 


332         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

crisis  that,  in  its  importance,  can  only  be  compared  to  the  cru- 
sades and  the  French  Revolution.  The  "Holy  Roman  Empire," 
which  Voltaire  had  described  as  being  neither  "holy,"  nor 
"Roman,"  nor  an  "empire,"  had  come  to  be  scarcely  more  than  a 
"barren  ideality."  It  embraced  but  little  territory  beyond  the 
confines  of  Germany,  which  was  only  a  huge  farm,  from  which 
the  rulers,  who  might  happen  to  be  Englishmen  or  Spaniards, 
might  reap  revenues  for  settling  their  personal  quarrels  and 
fighting  their  little  dynastic  wars.  The  rulers  of  Germany  were 
not  the  actual,  national  sovereigns  of  a  united  country  such  as 
were  the  rulers  of  France  or  England  at  that  time,  but  were  what 
have  been  called  "the  fictitious  heads  of  a  fictitious  state."  At 
that  period  the  social  condition  of  the  land  was  even  more  chaotic 
than  the  political  situation.  If  the  political  organization  of  the 
empire  was  weak,  the  internal  administration  was  weaker  still. 
In  addition  to  all  this,  it  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  deep 
and  widespread  discontent  with  the  condition  of  the  Church, 
which  is  so  manifest  in  the  writings  of  the  early  years  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  The  whole  of  the  people,  from  the  rulers  down 
to  the  humblest  peasant,  felt  themselves  unjustly  used,  and  the 
subjects  of  base  impostures.  The  clergy  were  denounced  as  both 
immoral  and  inefficient.  The  estimate  in  which  this  degenerate 
class  was  held  is  expressed  by  one  devout  writer,  who  declared 
that  young  men  are  considered  good  enough  for  priests  to  whom 
one  would  not  entrust  the  care  of  a  cow  held  in  any  kind  of 
esteem  for  her  worth.  The  grudge  of  the  land  against  the  papal 
court,  as  an  example,  found  eloquent  and  significant  expression 
in  the  verses  of  its  great  minnesinger,  Walther  Von  der  Vogel- 
weide.  Three  hundred  years  before  Luther's  day  he  had  de- 
clared the  pope  to  be  making  merry  over  the  stupid  Germans, 
whom  his  holiness  was  systematically  looting.  "All  their  goods," 
the  vicar  of  Christ  is  represented  as  saying,  "will  be  mine;  their 
silver  is  flowing  into  my  far-away  chest ;  their  priests  are  living 
on  poultry  and  wine,  and  leaving  the  silly  laymen  to  fast."  Sim- 
ilar sentiments  may  be  found  in  German  writers  for  many  of  the 
following  generations.  Then,  too,  there  was  widespread  dis- 
content with  the  financial  administration  of  the  Church.  What 
affected  the  people  more,  even,  than  the  personal  character  of 
the  popes,  or  even  the  degeneracy  of  their  own  clergy  nearer  home, 
was  the  fact  that  the  burden  of  taxation  was  appalling,  and  that 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  333 

the  amounts  required  were  becoming  distressing  impositions. 
Bishops  had  to  pay  thousands  of  guldens  when  they  were  con- 
firmed in  their  positions,  and  some  thousands  more  for  the  nar- 
row neck-band  that  was  the  badge  of  their  office.  The  annates  to  be 
paid  by  the  lower  clergy  amounted  regularly  to  half  the  income 
of  the  first  year.  To  these  were  to  be  added  the  extra  payments 
for  special  occasions,  gifts  that  had  to  be  distributed  right  and 
left,  and  continual  levies  for  crusades  that  never  did  any  cru- 
sading, except  on  the  resources  of  a  plain  people.  The  pope,  too, 
enjoyed  the  privilege  of  filling  all  the  important  benefices  in  Ger- 
many, and  frequently  appointed  Italians,  who  drew  the  revenues 
without  ever  performing  any  of  the  duties  of  the  office.  Fre- 
quently a  single  person  held  several  church  offices.  Early  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  as  an  example,  the  archbishop  of  Mayence  was 
at  the  same  time  the  archbishop  of  Magdeburg  and  the  bishop  of 
Halberstadt.  But  by  and  by  the  unlettered  Germany  of  those 
days  which  preceded  the  revolt  near  at  hand  grew  tired  of  all  this. 
She  came  to  realize  that  Rome,  which  for  ages  had  held  the  con- 
science strings  of  her  devout  people,  was  holding,  also,  the  purse 
strings ;  that  the  resources  of  her  own  contributors  were  growing 
thin  that  the  land  of  Italy,  beyond  the  Alps,  might  be  crowned 
with  the  arts  and  sciences  and  filled  with  palaces  crowded  with 
creations  of  grace  and  color. 

In  Germany,  accordingly,  the  land  where,  more  than  in  any 
other,  there  was  widespread  discontent  combined  with  a  yearning 
for  betterment,  the  conditions  were  such  that  Luther's  appearance 
was  hailed  with  delight  among  a  prepared  people,  and  whose  in- 
fluence throughout  the  nation  left  no  class  unaffected.  The  land 
was  waiting  for  its  redemption,  anxiously  looking  for  the  man 
who  was  big  enough  and  good  enough  to  lead  the  people  out 
from  their  papal  bondage  and  inaugurate  a  new  epoch  in  the  his- 
tory of  mankind,  by  means  of  a  reform  in  religion  and  a  revolt 
against  the  gigantic  despotism  that  had  fastened  itself  on  the 
Church  and  the  state.  The  reformers,  exuberant  in  the  posses- 
sion of  unexpected  liberty,  and  confident  in  the  belief  that  the 
whole  sacerdotal  system  would  be  speedily  overthrown,  were  not 
content  to  carry  on  a  merely  defensive  warfare  at  home,  but  were 
seeking  allies  everywhere,  and  were  attacking  the  enemy  in  his 
strongholds.  German  patriotism  rallied  to  the  support  of  Ger- 
man piety  in  this  good  fight  for  deliverance  from  the  yoke  of  the 


334         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

oppressor.  The  land  that  for  centuries  had  stood  at  the  right 
hand  of  the  chair  of  St.  Peter,  ready  to  assail  the  unfaithful  or  to 
defend  against  the  unbeliever,  was  waiting  for  the  man  who  was 
qualified  to  place  himself  at  the  head  of  the  larger  and  freer 
thinking  of  his  time,  and  direct  it  into  channels  that  would  at 
once  abandon  and  conserve— the  man  who  could  make  his  appeal 
not  only  in  the  name  of  religion,  but  also  in  that  of  public  order 
and  national  independence  and  prosperity. 

XI 

In  the  progress  of  this  attempt  at  interpreting  the  Lutheran 
movement  of  the  sixteenth  century,  much  has  been  said  about  the 
personality  of  Luther  and  the  primacy  of  his  place  and  influence. 
Much,  of  course,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  would  be  expected  in 
such  a  discussion  about  the  place  and  commanding  influence  of 
one  of  the  most  masterful  men  in  human  history,  to  whom,  under 
God,  the  world  in  our  day  owes  so  many  of  its  blessings.  So 
much  of  the  whole  social  and  political  fabric  of  our  time  is,  in 
large  measure,  the  fruit  of  his  life  and  work,  and  so  much  of 
our  political  liberty,  and  to  a  great  extent  the  free  institutions 
which  we  enjoy,  are  traceable  to  his  work  and  teaching,  that 
it  is  not  surprising  that  men  of  widely  divergent  religious  views 
and  even  contradictory  principles  should  have  so  uniformly 
agreed  in  their  interpretations  of  the  place  and  influence  of 
Luther.  It  will  serve  our  purpose  to  fortify  all  that  we  have 
said  by  adducing  here  the  testimony  of  some  of  the  great  interpre- 
ters of  the  men,  the  forces  and  the  measures  which  have  so  largely 
entered  into  the  advance  of  both  Christianity  and  civilization.  To 
advance  and  reform  religion  was  the  dominating  motive  of  the 
reformer  and  leader  of  the  great  movement  associated  forever 
with  his  name.  But  great  and  good  men  have  been  glad  in  turn 
to  rise  in  their  places  to  recognize  the  vastness  of  his  influence, 
not  only  in  the  sphere  of  religion,  but  in  that  of  freedom  and  all 
other  spheres  of  wholesome  activity.  These  estimates  of  the 
Reformer  all  serve  to  confirm  what  Prof.  Walker  has  said  in 
his  recent  "History  of  the  Christian  Church."  "He  is  one  of  the 
few  men  of  whom  it  may  be  said  that  the  history  of  the  world 
was  profoundly  altered  by  his  work." 

"I  beg."  says  John  Calvin,  the  great  systematizer  in  the  field 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  335 

of  reformed  theology,  "I  beg  that  you  may  consider  what  a  great 
man  Luther  is ;  with  what  gifts  he  has  been  endowed ;  with  what 
power,  with  what  steadfastness,  with  what  learning,  he  has  been 
fighting  against  the  kingdom  of  anti-Christ,  and  for  the  propaga- 
tion of  the  true  doctrine  of  our  salvation." 

D'Aubigne,  the  distinguished  reformed  historian,  pays  him  this 
tribute:  "Luther  was  the  first  to  proclaim  the  great  principles  of 
humanity  and  religious  liberty.  He  was  far  beyond  his  own  age, 
and  even  beyond  many  of  the  reformers,  in  toleration." 

In  his  delightful  volume  entitled  "The  Continental  Reforma- 
tion," the  distinguished  Anglican  scholar  and  historian,  Dr.  Al- 
fred Plummer,  declares  that  "Luther's  influence  on  religious  and 
political  ideas,  on  literature,  on  social  life,  and  on  the  map  of 
Europe,  has  been  enormous,  and  this  influence  has  been  won — 
largely  without  effort  on  his  part — through  his  massive  char- 
acter ;  through  his  sincerity,  earnestness,  unselfishness ;  and,  above 
all  these,  through  his  splendid  courage.  We  may  differ  widely 
from  some  of  his  opinions,  but  we  live  in  a  world  which  is  a 
wiser  and  better  world  because  of  Luther's  work." 

An  American  scholar,  one  of  Luther's  most  interesting  and 
sympathetic  interpreters  and  biographers.  Prof.  Preserved  Smith, 
says:  "His  career  marks  the  beginning  of  the  present  epoch,  for 
it  is  safe  to  say  that  every  man  in  western  Europe  and  in  America 
is  leading  a  different  life  today  from  what  he  would  have  led,  and 
is  another  person  altogether  from  what  he  would  have  been,  had 
Martin  Luther  not  lived.  For  the  most  important  fact  in  modern 
history  is  undoubtedly  the  great  schism  of  which  he  was  the 
author,  the  consequences  of  which  are  still  unfolding  and  will 
continue  to  unfold  foi\many  a  century  to  come." 

Such  interpretations  of  the  place  and  work  of  Luther  have  not- 
been  confined  to  such  as  have  shared  in,  or  even  measurably  shared 
in,  his  own  robust  theological  views,  for  it  is  James  Freeman 
Clarke,  leader  among  the  Unitarian  forces  of  this  country,  who 
affirms  that  Luther  "was  the  real  author  of  liberty  of  thought, 
the  giant  founder  of  modern  civilization,  the  restorer  to  our  times 
of  pure  Christianity ;  a  hero,  growing  more  and  more  the  mark 
of  reverence  through  the  succeeding  generations." 

Even  the  Roman  Catholic  historian  Michelet  says :  "Luther 
has  been  the  restorer  of  liberty,  and  if  we  exercise  in  all  its  plen- 
itude at  this  day  this  highest  privilege  of  human  intelligence,  it 


336         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

is  to  Luther  we  are  indebted  for  it ;  to  whom  do  I  owe  the  power 
of  publishing  what  I  am  even  now  writing,  except  to  this  libera- 
tor of  modern  thought?" 

James  Anthony  Froude,  the  great  historian,  was  an  Englishman 
who  knew  much  of  the  factors  that  have  entered  into  the  making 
of  modern  history.  He  has  had  much  to  say  about  Luther  and 
his  influence,  expressing  the  comprehensive  judgment  that,  but 
for  the  influence  of  his  commanding  personality,  the  whole  world 
would  be  thinking  differently  now.  "Luther,"  said  Mr.  Froude, 
"was  one  of  the  grandest  men  that  ever  lived  on  earth.  Never 
was  anyone  more  loyal  to  the  light  that  was  in  him,  braver,  truer 
or  wider-minded  in  the  noblest  sense  of  the  word.  The  share  of 
the  work  which  fell  to  him  Luther  accomplished  most  perfectly." 
"The  reformers  were  men  of  note  and  distinction,  who  played  a 
great  part  for  good  or  evil  on  the  stage  of  the  world.  If  we 
except  the  Apostles,  no  body  of  human  beings  ever  printed  so 
deep  a  mark  into  the  organization  of  society,  and  if  there  be  any 
value  or  meaning  in  history  at  all,  the  lives,  the  actions,  the  char- 
acter of  such  men  as  these  can  be  matters  of  indifference  to  none 
of  us.  No  man  is  what  he  would  have  been  if  Martin  Luther 
had  not  been  born." 

In  all  that  he  had  to  say  of  the  Reformer  and  his  work 
Froude  was  always  in  sympathy  with  the  interpretation  of  Fred- 
erick the  Great:  "Had  Luther  done  nothing  else  than  liberate 
the  princes  and  the  people  from  the  servile  bondage  under  which 
the  dominion  of  the  Roman  papacy  held  them,  he  would  deserve 
to  have  a  monument  erected  as  the  liberator  of  his  country." 

Writing  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  for  April,  1884,  Principal 
John  Tullock,  who  has  been  among  the  ablest  interpreters  of  the 
whole  group  of  sixteenth  century  reformers,  says :  "All  modern 
Christian  liberty  may  be  said  to  be  the  outcome  of  the  protest 
taken  at  Spires  and  Augsburg  by  the  evangelical  members  of  the 
German  empire.  That  attitude  of  these  Christian  princes  and 
others  was  again  only  possible  in  the  light  of  the  great  struggle 
which  had  been  maintained  during  the  twelve  previous  years  by 
one  man.  The  Diet  of  Worms  and  Luther's  memorable  words 
there  alone  explain  the  subsequent  diets  at  Spires  and  Augsburg. 
The  courage  of  a  single  man  as  he  faced,  on  that  great  occasion, 
the  mailed  chivalry  of  Germany — a  pale  and  slight  figure  as  yet 
without  any  of  the  brave  rotundity  of  his  later  years — gave  the 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  337 

courage  which  inspired  the  famous  protest,  and  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  all  Christian  and  ecclesiastical  liberties.  The  voice  of  God 
uttered  itself  in  Luther,  that  the  mass  of  lies  which  had  become 
identified  with  medieval  Christendom  should  no  longer  continue. 
The  voice  was  heard  in  many  lands,  and  there  were  many  who 
arose  to  help  the  German  monk,  and  carry  forward  the  great 
work,  but  that  Reformation  became  possible  in  England  and  Scot- 
land as  well  as  Germany,  and  that  Protestantism  after  many 
struggles  was  able  to  receive  a  footing  in  Europe,  was,  owing 
in  large  part,  as  it  has  been  said,  'to  the  intense  personal  convic- 
tion and  contagious  faith  of  one  man — Martin  Luther.'  " 

In  the  later  years  of  its  history  England  has  had  but  few 
statesmen  and  historians  the  equal  of  James  Bryce,  viscount  and 
former  ambassador  of  his  country  at  Washington.  "The  Refor- 
mation," says  he,  "erected  the  standard  of  civil  as  well  as  re- 
ligious liberty.  It  was  in  its  essence  the  assertion  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  individuality,  that  is  to  say,  of  true  spiritual  freedom. 
Hitherto  the  personal  consciousness  had  been  a  faint  and  broken 
reflection  of  the  universal ;  obedience  had  been  held  the  first  of 
religious  duties,  truth  had  been  conceived  as  something  external 
and  positive,  which  the  priesthood,  who  were  its  stewards,  were 
to  communicate  to  the  passive  laymen,  and  whose  saving  virtue 
lay  not  in  being  felt  and  known  by  him  to  be  the  truth,  but  in  a 
purely  formal  and  unreasoning  acceptance." 

In  an  address  made  in  1883  in  the  Academy  of  Music  in  New 
York,  at  the  celebration  of  the  four  hundredth  anniversary  of  the 
birth  of  Luther,  another,  and  an  American  statesman,  the  Hon. 
John  Jay,  said :  "No  country  has  more  reason  than  this  republic 
to  recall  with  joy  the  blessings  Luther  assisted  to  secure  for  the 
world,  in  emancipating  thought  and  conscience,  and  impressing 
the  stamp  of  Christianity  upon  modern  civilization.  Although 
America  had  not  been  discovered  by  Columbus  when  Luther  was 
born,  Luther's  far-reaching  influence,  which  today  is  felt  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  helped  to  people  our  northern  continent 
with  the  colonists  who  laid  the  foundation  of  its  future  liberties 
on  the  truths  of  the  Bible." 

In  an  address  before  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  de- 
livered on  the  four  hundredth  anniversary  of  Luther's  birth,  the 
Hon.  Robert  C.  Winthrop  said :  "We  come  today  to  recognize 
Martin  Luther  as,  beyond  all  other  men,  the  instrument  of  God 


338         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

in  giving  the  impulse  by  thought,  word  and  act,  to  that  world- 
wide movement  which  resulted  not  merely  in  the  reformation  of 
Europe,  but  in  all  that  we  Americans  now  enjoy,  and  all  that  we 
rejoice  in  being.  Pilgrim  and  Puritan,  Cavalier  and  Roundhead, 
Huguenot  and  Quaker,  yes,  and  Roman  Catholic  also,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  all  alike  felt  that  impulse." 

In  his  now  famous  patriotic  address  at  Bunker  Hill,  June  17, 
1843,  Daniel  Webster,  great  among  the  statesmen  and  orators  of 
all  lands,  said:  "The  Reformation  of  Luther  broke  out,  kindling 
up  minds  of  men  afresh,  leading  to  new  habits  of  thought,  and 
awakening  in  individuals  energies  before  unknown  even  to  them- 
selves. The  religious  controversies  of  this  period  changed  so- 
ciety as  well  as  religion;  indeed,  it  would  be  easy  to  prove,  if  this 
occasion  were  proper  for  it,  that  they  changed  society  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  where  they  did  not  change  the  religion  of  the 
state.  They  changed  man  himself,  in  his  modes  of  thought, 
consciousness  of  his  own  powers,  and  his  desire  of  intellectual 
attainment.  *  *  *  This  love  of  religious  liberty  drawing 
after  it,  or  bringing  along  with  it,  as  it  always  does,  an  ardent 
devotion  to  the  principle  of  civil  liberty  also,  was  the  powerful 
influence  under  which  character  was  formed  and  men  trained." 

In  full  harmony  with  all  that  has  been  adduced,  and  much 
more  that  might  be,  from  other  than  Lutherans,  what  has  been 
said  by  later  writers  might  be  added  almost  without  limit.  It  is 
all,  we  may  say,  in  entire  harmony  with  what  has  been  affirmed 
(and  very  recently)  by  one  of  our  distinguished  university  presi- 
dents, who,  with  his  eye  upon  present  needs  as  well  as  past 
achievements,  said : 

"America  is  peculiarly  indebted  to  the  Reformation,  for  that 
was  the  great  crisis  in  the  emancipation  of  the  human  spirit  from 
the  control  of  human  authority.  America  needs  today  a  fresh  in- 
fusion of  the  temper  of  the  Reformation,  for  that  enfranchise- 
ment of  the  human  spirit  was  accomplished  through  a  clear  and 
controlling  recognition  of  God's  presence  and  of  His  authority 
speaking  through  the  conscience." 

"It  is  often  forgotten,"  says  the  late  Prof.  Thomas  Lindsay, 
Scotch  theologian  and  historian,  who  has  written  so  much  of 
Luther  and  the  German  Reformation,  "that  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, in  which  Luther  was  the  most  outstanding  figure,  saw  the 
beginnings  of  our  present  social  life  in  almost  everything,  from 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  339 

our  way  of  looking  at  politics  and  our  modes  of  trade  to  our 
underclothing." 

The  late  Dr.  Charles  Briggs,  conspicuous  in  his  day  as  a 
somewhat  negative  theologian,  but  who,  happily,  in  his  later  years 
returned  more  and  more  to  conservative  views,  especially  on  the 
great  and  fundamental  doctrine  of  the  incarnation,  used  these 
discriminating  words  in  speaking  of  the  Reformation : 

"Luther  wielded  the  sword  of  the  Spirit.  He  grasped  the 
truth  with  all  his  strength  and  made  it  a  part  of  his  own  being. 
The  truth  of  God  swayed  him  with  irresistible  power.  Es- 
sential and  vital  truths  and  great  unities  made  him  their  spokes- 
man. He  impressed  these  so  deeply  upon  the  Germanic  world 
that  they  characterize  the  modern  age,  and  will  never  be  effaced." 

In  the  long  history  of  the  American  pulpit,  two  of  the  most 
conspicuous  and  deservedly  venerated  names  are  those  of  the 
late  Dr.  William  Taylor  and  Phillips  Brooks,  the  one  a  famous 
expositor  in  the  pulpit,  the  other  a  splendid  Christian  idealist. 
The  former  has  said  that  "it  was  the  merit  of  Luther  that  he  set 
free  the  Word  of  God;  and  because  that  is  a  divine  agent  and 
touches  the  mainsprings  of  individual,  social  and  national  life, 
his  influence  has  gone  farther  and  struck  deeper  than  that  of  any 
other  man  in  modern  history."  And  the  latter:  "It  was  the 
sense  of  the  divine  commission  and  the  profoundness  of  the 
struggle  that  created  Luther,  who  shook  the  throne  of  the  Caesars 
and  made  Europe  anew.  He  is  the  prophet  and  priest  of  human 
nature  at  once.  To  take  Luther  out  of  the  Reformation  is  to  take 
the  sun  out  of  the  sunshine." 

Among  the  living,  one  of  the  brightest  and  sanest  among  pres- 
ent day  preachers  is  Dr.  Charles  Jefferson,  who,  in  speaking  of  a 
Reformation  lesson  for  the  twentieth  century,  said  this :  "With 
men's  faces  turned  toward  the  future,  the  question  immediately 
arose :  Can  a  man  accept  the  new  facts  which  he  finds  ?  Can  he 
embrace  the  new  truths  which  he  arrives  at?  Can  he  confess 
the  new  principles  which  have  been  revealed  to  him  by  the  experi- 
ence of  his  soul  ?  The  question  was  settled  at  the  Diet  of  Worms. 
It  was  settled  by  Martin  Luther.  He  had  found  out  some  things 
which  he  believed  to  be  true,  and  believing  them  to  be  true  he 
published  them ;  having  published  them,  he  was  ready  to  defend 
them.  But  they  contradicted  what  had  been  declared  by  the  past. 
In  past  councils  the  Church  had  spoken,  and  its  decrees  could  not 


340         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

be  changed.  The  advocate  of  liberty  met  the  assembled  hosts  of 
authority.  The  electors  and  the  princes  and  the  great  emperor 
himself  were  all  present.  Over  their  heads  there  rose  rank  above 
rank,  representatives  of  the  most  august  and  mighty  hierarchy 
known  to  history.  Bishops,  archbishops,  patriarchs,  cardinals — 
the  whole  culminating  in  the  baptized  Caesar,  the  bishop  of  Rome. 
The  hierarchy  says  to  the  young  man,  'Recant,'  and  his  answer  is, 
'I  will  not  recant  unless  I  am  convinced  by  clear  argument.'  All 
human  history  has  been  different  since  the  Diet  at  Worms.  Ever 
since  then  the  mind  has  been  free." 

In  a  quadri-centennial  address,  pointing  to  our  national  flag 
standing  nearby,  Dr.  E.  H.  Mullins,  easily  the  first  Baptist  theo- 
logian now  living  in  this  country,  said :  "In  its  essence  the  con- 
test made  by  Luther  was  for  the  fundamental  things  for  which 
that  flag  stands.  Luther,"  says  he  further,  "must  be  placed  be- 
side those  who  are  fighting  for  religious  and  political  democracy 
in  these  days.  God's  justifying  grace  alone  explains  the  man. 
In  the  providence  of  God,  he  was  the  first  successful  champion 
of  the  right  of  every  man  to  direct  access  to  the  Saviour  without 
any  intermediary.  Every  great  war  waged  in  the  world  since 
Luther  initiated  the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century,  merely 
has  been  a  repetition  of  the  conflict  that  Luther  had  in  his  day, 
the  conflict  of  democracy  against  autocracy." 

Judging  from  all  that  we  have  seen  and  heard,  the  most  influ- 
ential American  Methodist  of  our  day  is  Dr.  James  M.  Buckley, 
the  distinguished  editor  for  many  years  of  the  Christian  Advocate, 
now  living  in  the  retirement  of  his  old  age.  Of  Luther  and  his 
relation  to  our  country  he  has  said :  "Luther  fought  the  battle 
of  civil  and  religious  liberty  for  us  and  all  men.  There  are 
strong  grounds  for  our  American  respect  for  the  great  name 
of  Luther.  *  *  *  No  better  qualities  were  ever  transferred 
to  this  country  than  came  over  with  the  families,  who,  either 
willingly  or  by  force,  had  derived  their  theology  and  religious 
experience  from  Luther.  *  *  *  The  Lutheran  theology's 
general  influence  has  been  pure  and  helpful  to  our  general  re- 
ligious development.  As  a  nation,  then,  we  have  ample  reason  to 
revere  the  memory  of  Luther.  *  *  *  He  has  been  our  heroic 
Protestant  as  fully  as  if  he  had  been  born  on  our  shores,  for  his 
children  came  hither,  and  have  helped  us  to  fight  all  our  battles 
and  rear  this  new  western  civilization." 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  341 

Another  of  the  strong  writers  and  thinkers  of  the  same  Church, 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Leech,  says  in  one  of  his  fine  essays : 

"By  this  man,  more  than  by  any  other  man  for  eighteen  cen- 
turies, our  own  century  drinks  the  living  waters  of  Christianity 
at  its  fountain  source.  To  Luther,  more  than  to  any  other  man 
since  St.  Paul,  the  Church  of  Christ  is  indebted  for  its  grasp  of 
two  essential  principles :  The  first  is  the  fact  of  justification,  or 
forgiveness  of  sin,  by  faith  and  not  of  works.  The  second  is 
that  the  Divine  Word  is  supreme  in  all  faith  and  practice,  and  in 
all  organizations  of  the  Church.  More  today,  than  to  any  other 
man  of  eighteen  hundred  years,  men  owe  to  Luther  freedom  of 
thought,  of  speech,  of  conscience,  of  action ;  the  right  to  worship 
God  according  to  what  conscience  dictates." 

Widely  recognized  as  one  of  the  leading  figures  in  English 
Christianity  today,  and  one  of  its  most  stimulating  thinkers,  is  Dr. 
Peter  Forsyth.  Speaking  of  the  Reformation  in  his  book  en- 
titled, "Rome,  Reform  and  Reaction,"  Dr.  Forsyth  says :  "Free- 
dom took  a  new  meaning  for  the  world  and  for  nations  as  men 
were  set  free  by  faith  and  started  on  a  new  moral  career. 
*  *  *  When  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness  were 
sought  by  faith  in  Christ,  all  else  seemed  added.  Luther  taught 
men  and  convinced  men  anew  what  true  religion,  true  Chris- 
tianity was,  and  in  its  wake  came  science,  and  the  modern  state 
with  its  civic  and  municipal  life  and  social  rights.  *  *  * 
Luther,  I  reiterate,  rediscovered  Paul  and  the  New  Testament. 
Pie  gave  back  to  Christianity  the  Gospel,  and  he  restored  Chris- 
tianity to  religion.  But  in  giving  us  back  the  old  he  brought  to 
pass  the  new  age.  He  magnified  the  individual  to  himself,  and  so 
he  opened  a  new  world  to  the  world.  *  *  *  The  ideal  (of 
Catholicism)  is  an  outgrown  paganism,  which  the  Reformation 
first  broke.  *  *  *  The  old  pagan  idea  did  not  really  receive 
its  death-blow  till  the  Reformation.  The  new  age,  the  new 
human  career,  then  first  broke  out  of  the  old  faith  when  Luther 
brought  that  faith  to  light.  Assisi  was  well,  but  it  did  not  do 
what  had  to  be  done,  and  what  was  done  at  Wittenberg,  Worms 
and  Wartburg." 

Such  expressions  of  judgment  given  by  great  and  good  men, 
such  estimates  of  the  place,  work  and  permanent  influence  of 
one  of  the  best  of  men,  and  given  with  such  uniformity,  could  be 
given  at  greater  length.     Even  when  accorded  to  a  man  as  great 


342         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

as  Luther,  they  afford  a  rare  exhibition  of  appreciation  of  one 
who  had  been  mighty  enough  in  his  day  to  have  been  more  power- 
ful than  emperor  and  pope  combined.  "By  his  word  and  his  pen 
alone,'!  says  Prof.  Hausrath,  "he  had  wrung  Germany  from  the 
mighty  emperor  on  whose  empire  the  sun  never  set.  The  profes- 
sor, whose  salary  was  never  more  than  four  hundred  florins  a 
year,  had  bought  out  the  owner  of  the  whole  treasure  of  all  the 
indulgences ;  victor  over  emperor  and  pope,  he  died." 

XII 

In  estimating  the  rock  whence  we  have  been  hewn  and  the  hole 
of  the  pit  whence  we  have  been  digged,  as  a  free  and  independent 
people,  we  are  liable  to  stop  short  and  fail  to  come  to  the  real 
source  of  that  which  we  prize  as  among  our  inestimable  blessings. 
Jesus  Christ,  after  all  that  may  be  said  by  philosophers,  historians 
and  statesmen,  is  the  author  of  liberty  in  a  far  profounder  and 
more  significant  sense  than  even  most  good  men  realize.  A  great 
and  comprehensive  emancipation  is  indicated  in  the  words,  "If, 
therefore,  the  Son  shall  make  you  free,  ye  shall  be  free  indeed." 
Christ,  it  is  true,  did  not  come  into  the  world  primarily  to  promote 
civil  and  political  liberty.  His  mission  is  first  of  all  a  mission  of 
redemption.  He  came  to  set  men  free  from  the  bondage  of  sin, 
and  unless  He  has  become  the  author  of  liberty  to  us  in  this  sense, 
we  occupy  the  position  and  play  the  part  of  slaves,  even  though 
we  live  in  America  and  enjoy  all  the  rights  and  privileges  of 
American  citizens.  The  Gospel  not  only  brings  to  men  the  glad 
news  that  emancipation  from  sin  is  possible,  but  also  points  to 
One  who  actually  achieves  that  emancipation.  Herein  lies 
Christ's  chief  significance  as  the  author  of  liberty,  while  the 
liberty  we  have  been  contemplating  is  an  unquestionable  by- 
product of  His  career  among  men  and  His  wonderful  teaching. 
Accordingly,  if  we  want  to  read  the  chapter  of  growing  religious 
liberty,  of  popular  intelligence,  of  civil  freedom,  of  developing 
commerce  and  invention,  we  must  go  back  to  the  lands  which,  in 
the  struggles  of  the  sixteenth  century,  stopped  to  listen  to  the 
messages  of  Luther  and  Calvin,  Zwingli  and  Beza,  Latimer  and 
Knox,  the  reverberations  of  which  were  later  heard  in  this  land, 
at  that  time  but  newly  discovered  and  opened  up  to  the  coming 
of  new  peoples  dominated  by  Reformation  principles.     In  the  old 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  343 

lands  beyond  the  sea  there  was  not  room  enough  for  that  old 
conflict  which  had  arisen  in  the  eleventh  century  between  the 
pope  and  the  emperor  as  to  who  should  really  be  in  the  ascendant 
in  the  new  European  edifice,  the  lay  or  the  ecclesiastical  suzerain, 
and  which  was  to  be  fought  out  to  its  final  issue  in  the  sovereignty 
of  a  free  and  independent  people. 

As  we  turn  the  pages  of  the  early  history  of  this  country  we 
see  that  men  had  contemplated  it  simply  as  a  fine  territory  for 
exploitation  and  commercial  aggrandizement.  The  trader  sought 
to  pre-empt  it  for  his  own.  The  hunter  for  gold  traversed  its 
vast  stretches,  ascended  its  rivers,  crossed  mountain  ranges ;  and 
while  the  land  contained  treasures  of  surpassing  magnitude,  it 
kept  back  its  secret  until  the  new  principles  set  forth  by  Luther  in 
old  lands  in  central  Europe  should  contest  their  right  to  be 
affirmed  and  live  alongside  of  that  powerful  ecclesiastical  ma- 
chine that  had  met  in  successful  encounter  so  many  forms  of  op- 
position, and  which  w7as  so  venerable  that  it  reached  back  to  the 
times  of  Leo  the  Great  and  Gregory,  one  of  his  successors,  also 
called  the  Great. 

On  this  new  continent,  as  its  Anglo-Saxon  history  developed, 
the  papal  Spaniard  crept  up  from  the  south  and  the  Bourbon  of 
the  same  faith  crept  down  from  the  north,  the  one  co-operating 
with  the  other  to  hem  in  the  feeble  Protestant  colonies  which 
had  been  planted  between  the  Alleghenies  and  the  Atlantic,  and 
staking  down  their  claims  with  a  line  of  forts  extending  from 
Canada  to  Mexico.  But  the  two  most  powerful  nations  of  the 
then  known  world  failed  in  their  combination  against  the  pioneers 
of  popular  government  and  the  friends  of  an  open  Bible,  who  had 
drawn  their  inspiration  from  Luther's  theses  of  1517,  his  mem- 
orable stand  at  Worms  in  1521,  and  the  protesting  princes  at 
Speyer  in  1529. 

In  his  recent  book,  entitled  "The  Foundations  of  Religion  in 
America,"  Dr.  Charles  L.  Thompson  says  that  "a  straight  line 
reaches  from  Cape  Cod  to  Wittenberg  and  Geneva,"  and  affirms 
that  Luther  and  Calvin  let  loose  the  two  great  principles — man's 
true  relation  to  God,  and  men's  relation  to  each  other — which 
were  destined  to  reform  the  world  after  the  pattern  of  Christian 
democracy." 

Thus  the  principles  of  the  Reformation  contended  for  by 
Luther  have  worked  out  the  finest  and  most  complete  results  for 


344         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

civil  liberty  and  organized  democracy  on  the  American  continent. 
The  essential  principles  of  that  movement  underlie  the  civil  as 
well  as  the  religious  life  of  this  great  republic,  in  which  they  were 
destined  to  have  their  highest  development.  In  our  day  it  seems 
almost  incredible  that  a  little  more  than  four  hundred  years  ago 
civilized  man  was  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  this  vast  continent, 
on  which,  as  we  are  wont  to  believe,  problems  of  human  history 
are  yet  to  be,  and  we  fondly  hope,  successfully,  dealt  with.  It 
is  undoubtedly  true  that  this  continent  was  originally  discovered 
by  hardy,  sea-faring  Northmen  about  the  year  1000  of  our  era. 
But  the  fact  of  that  discovery  was  somehow  wrested  back  from 
the  knowledge  of  mankind,  because,  as  it  seemed,  the  "fulness  of 
time"  had  not  yet  come  for  its  settlement  and  development,  so 
that  1492  A.  D.,  marks  the  real  date  of  the  continent's  disclosure, 
when  Christopher  Columbus  found  the  new  world.  His  explora- 
tions permanently  opened  up  the  land  to  the  incoming  thousands, 
and  to  the  enterprise  and  enlargement  that  have  come  with  our 
expanding  civilization.  On  that  October  morning  of  1492,  when 
Columbus  sighted  the  shores  of  this  new  world,  when  this  coun- 
try was  about  to  be  brought  out  of  the  oblivion  of  ages,  a  little 
boy  less  than  ten  years  of  age  was  attending  a  village  school  in 
an  inconspicuous  place  known  as  Mansfeld,  in  Saxony,  and  who, 
twenty-five  years  later  was  to  start  the  world  along  the  pathway 
which  led  men  into  the  new  era  and  the  new  world  of  the  modern 
period  of  history;  who  also  in  the  course  of  his  great  work  was 
finally  to  reaffirm  those  principles  which  inspired  our  fathers,  and 
which  found  expression  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and 
the  Federal  Constitution. 

Unquestionably  the  finest  and  best  results  for  civil  liberty,  re- 
sulting from  the  principles  contended  for  in  the  period  of  the 
Reformation,  have  been  attained  on  the  American  continent.  It 
is  worth  while  to  recall  here  the  words  of  Dr.  John  William 
Draper,  the  author  of  "The  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe," 
who  says  that  "the  Reformation  broke  down  unity ;  it  gave  liberty 
to  masses  of  men  grouped  together  in  sufficient  numbers  to  in- 
sure their  position ;  it  is  now,  invisibly  but  irresistibly,  making 
steps  never  to  be  stayed  until  there  is  an  absolute  emancipation 
for  man.  Great  revolutions  are  not  often  accomplished  without 
much  suffering  and  many  crimes.  It  might  have  been  supposed 
before  the  event,  perhaps  it  is  supposed  by  many  who  are  not  to 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  345 

live  among  the  last  results,  that  this  decomposition  of  religious 
faith  must  be  to  the  detriment  of  personal  and  practical  piety. 
Yet  America,  in  which,  of  all  countries,  the  Reformation  at  the 
present  moment  is  farthest  advanced,  should  offer  to  thoughtful 
men  much  encouragement.  Its  cities  are  filled  with  churches 
built  by  voluntary  gifts;  its  clergy  are  voluntarily  sustained,  and 
are  in  all  directions  engaged  in  enterprises  of  piety,  education  and 
mercy.  What  a  difference  between  their  private  life  and  that  of 
ecclesiastics  before  the  Reformation !  Not  as  in  the  old  times  does 
the  layman  look  upon  them  as  the  cormorants  and  curse  of  so- 
ciety; they  are  his  faithful  advisers;  his  honored  friends,  under 
whose  suggestion  and  supervision  are  instituted  educational  estab- 
lishments, colleges,  hospitals,  whatever  can  be  of  benefit  to  men 
in  this  life,  or  secure  for  them  happiness  in  the  life  to  come." 
The  discovery  of  this  country  was  not  the  result  of  an  acci- 
dent. It  was  not  the  outcome  of  a  combination  of  fortuitous  cir- 
cumstances, as  some  discoveries  seem  to  have  been.  It  came 
about,  manifestly  and  unmistakably,  under  the  superintending 
providence  of  the  God  of  our  fathers,  the  God  and  Father  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  In  that  great  and  significant  fact  we  dis- 
cover not  only  the  evidence  of  God's  works,  but  also  of  God's 
purposes,  towards  which  all  His  works  are  slowly  tending,  a 
luminous  testimony  to  the  truth  of  what  the  Bible  so  repeatedly 
affirms  about  the  Divine  Will  as  a  controlling  force  in  the  move- 
ments of  human  history.  The  case  of  Benjamin  Franklin  is  not 
that  of  an  isolated  observer,  when  he  declared  that  what  he  had 
seen  in  our  war  for  independence  had  satisfied  him  of  the  active 
participation  of  God  in  human  history,  and  had  shattered  his 
deism  forever  into  pieces.  Columbus  had  died  in  ignorance  of 
the  real  grandeur  and  significance  of  his  discovery  of  1492,  be- 
lieving that  he  had  only  been  the  agent  in  opening  up  a  new  path- 
way to  the  lands  of  opulence  in  the  Far  East ;  but  that  great 
event  filled  the  world  with  wonder  and  delight.  To  the  mind  of 
the  intelligent  inquirer  it  opened  up  a  field  of  new  and  boundless 
investigation;  to  mere  adventurers  it  offered  hitherto  unknown 
opportunities,  while  to  commercial  enterprise  it  was  an  invitation 
to  enter  new  and  promising  fields  for  enlargement  and  wealth. 
The  peoples  of  the  old  lands  beyond  the  Atlantic  awaited  with  in- 
tense eagerness  further  developments.  That  discovery  had  come 
at  a  time  when  great  changes  in  the  aspects  of  spiritual  life,  the 


346         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

revival  of  nationalism  and  the  assertion  of  the  spirit  of  inde- 
pendence, were  in  progress,  and  when  greater  changes  in  the 
hopes  and  aspirations  of  men  and  nations  were  anticipated.  New 
forms  of  government,  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  were  being  pro- 
posed and  devised,  while  the  seeds  of  free  institutions,  so  promi- 
nent now  among  the  most  advanced  peoples  of  the  earth,  were 
being  scattered  broadcast,  were  germinating  in  generous  soil  and 
bearing  fruit,  of  which  our  own  republic  is  the  best  and  fairest 
example  on  the  earth.  The  chief  significance  attaching  to  the 
discovery  of  Columbus  was  that  he  had,  under  God,  come  upon  a 
land  which  was  destined  to  afford  a  new  opportunity  for  liberty — 
an  opportunity  to  be  embraced  by  peoples  who  were  to  bring  with 
them  those  fruitful  and  emancipating  principles  reaffirmed  by 
Luther  in  his  contest  with  the  papacy  and  the  empire  in  the  six- 
teenth century. 

In  much  of  the  discussion  of  the  genesis  of  our  civil  institu- 
tions in  this  country,  there  has  been  a  stopping  short  of  the  real 
causes  that  have  contributed  to  their  true  origin  and  source. 
Those  causes  contributing  to  the  establishment  of  our  free  insti- 
tutions antedate  the  settlement  made  by  English  gentlemen  at 
Jamestown  in  1607,  or  that  of  the  "Pilgrim  Fathers"  at  Plymouth 
in  1620,  or  that  made  by  the  Puritan  at  Salem  in  1628,  and  who 
in  the  past  has  frequently  been  accorded  more  than  was  due  him 
in  estimating  the  sources  of  our  freedom.  Those  sources  reach 
back  to  great  religious  truths  we  have  already  considered — 
truths  revived  and  reaffirmed  by  the  reformers;  principles  which 
caused  men  to  be  abased  only  before  God,  and  which  led  them 
to  burst  shackles  imposed  by  an  arrogant  hierarchy  and  a  tryanni- 
cal  absolutism.  The  nailing  of  the  theses  to  the  church  door  in 
Wittenberg  was  the  first  impulse  given  to  those  sentiments  of 
true  freedom  which  have  culminated  in  those  cherished  institu- 
tions which,  in  this  land,  are  our  birthright  and  inheritance.  It 
was  on  this  continent,  in  this  new  world,  and  by  reason  of  the 
antecedents,  character  and  objects  contemplated  by  the  first  real 
settlers,  that  these  great  religious,  social  and  political  principles 
of  the  Reformation  found  a  wider  and  more  favorable  sphere — 
in  a  word,  their  true  and  proper  home.  Our  history,  more  than 
that  of  any  other  people,  presents  their  development  and  realiza- 
tion, and  has  given  us  that  individualism  and  self-reliance,  that 
enterprise  and  energy,  which  in  religion,  civil  affairs  and  com- 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  347 

merce  have  been  characteristic  of  us  as  a  people.  The  men  and 
women  who,  fleeing  from  persecution,  that,  unmolested,  they 
might  enjoy  liberty  of  conscience  and  political  freedom,  laid  the 
foundations  of  our  government,  were  true  Protestants,  disciplined 
in  the  struggles  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries. 
"They  brought  with  them  into  the  new  world,"  says  De  Tocque- 
ville,  "a  form  of  Christianity  which  I  cannot  better  describe  than 
by  styling  it  a  democratic  and  republican  religion.  They  con- 
tributed powerfully  to  the  establishment  of  a  democracy  and  a 
republic ;  and  from  the  earliest  settlement  of  the  emigrants, 
politics  and  religion  contracted  an  alliance  that  has  never  been 
dissolved." 

"Who  can  foretell,"  says  Villers,  another  Frenchman,  writing 
when  our  republic  was  yet  in  its  infancy,  "who  can  tell  us  all 
that  may  result  in  the  two  worlds  from  the  example  of  the 
American?  What  new  position  would  the  world  assume  if  this 
example  were  followed?  And  without  doubt  it  will  be  to  the 
end.  Thus  a  Saxon  monk  will  have  changed  the  face  of  the 
whole  world."  "The  Reformation,"  the  same  writer  further 
says,  "introduced  a  new  order  of  things.  Powerful  republics 
were  founded.  Their  principles,  still  more  powerful  than  their 
aims,  were  introduced  into  all  nations,  and  hence  arose  great 
revolutions." 

The  God  of  the  nations  somehow  hid  this  continent  from  the  ««"/ 
knowledge  of  the  world  until  He  could  open  up  all  its  scope  to  the 
freedom  and  faith  of  gathered  peoples  from  lands  dominated  by 
Protestant  principles,  to  be  a  nation  to  His  honor  and  praise. 
Those  principles  were  brought  to  this  land  by  men  who  had  be- 
lieved in  and  contended  for  them  beyond  the  sea,  and  who  em- 
bodied them  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  in  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States.  It  is,  accordingly,  not  surprising 
that  so  many  competent  historians,  statesmen  and  scholars  have 
been  fond  of  tracing  the  priceless  blessings  of  liberty  and  the 
rights  of  conscience  and  worship  which  the  American  people 
enjoy  to  the  direct  and  indirect  influences  of  the  truths  and  prin- 
ciples proclaimed  by  Luther  four  hundred  years  ago.  A  govern- 
ment such  as  ours  could  not  have  originated  under  those  papal 
principles  and  powers  which  had  their  chief  center  in  the  south 
of  Europe.  The  Reformation  came  from  the  rugged  thinking  of 
the  more  democratic  nations  of  northern  Europe.     The  uniform- 


348         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

ity  of  informed  opinion  on  this  subject  is  something  noteworthy. 
Writing  of  the  Reformation,  Robertson,  the  biographer  of  Charles 
V,  says :  "It  was  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  interesting  revolu- 
tions recorded  in  history — a  revolution  in  the  sentiments  of  man- 
kind the  greatest  as  well  as  the  most  beneficial  that  has  happened 
since  the  publication  of  Christianity.  It  rescued  one  part  of 
Europe  from  the  papal  yoke  and  mitigated  its  rigor  in  the  other." 
"Had  there  been  no  Luther,"  says  Froude,  "the  English,  the 
German  and  the  American  people  would  be  thinking  differently, 
acting  differently — would  be  altogether  different  men  and  women 
from  what  they  are."  And  George  Bancroft,  our  own  histor- 
ian, says  that  "Our  national  organization  counts  Christianity 
among  its  sources ;  it  was  essentially  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the 
Reformation  which  rose  in  Germany  with  Luther." 

The  intense  and  passionate  sense  of  sin,  and  the  greatness  of 
that  redemption  which  has  been  provided  by  the  gratuitous 
mercy  of  God,  are  not  more  marked  as  features  of  Luther's  own 
personal  experience  than  is  the  striking  consensus  of  informed 
judgment  that  the  traces  of  that  one  commanding  mind  of  the 
sixteenth  century  are  to  be  discovered  to  this  day  in  the  move- 
ments and  finest  influences  of  the  modern  world,  and  particularly 
in  the  founding  and  progress  of  this  great  nation.  Like  the 
heathen  prophet,  when  from  the  height  of  Pisgah  he  looked  down 
on  the  fair  and  ordered  camp  of  Israel,  men  have  been  impelled 
to  say  of  this  great  people :  "Surely  the  Lord  their  God  is  with 
them,  and  the  shout  of  a  king  is  among  them." 

One  of  the  great  Reformer's  best  biographers  has  said :  "That 
the  principles  of  Martin  Luther  are  the  fundamental  principles 
of  our  American  republic,  there  can  be  no  question."  "Who  can 
doubt,"  says  Prof.  George  P.  Fisher,  "that  the  United  States  of 
America  are,  not  indeed  wholly,  but  in  great  part,  indebted  for 
their  position,  as  contrasted  with  that  of  Mexico  and  the  political 
communities  of  South  America,  to  this  expansion  of  the  power 
of  the  individual,  which  is  the  uniform  and  legitimate  fruit  of 
Protestant  principles  ?"  Lossing  has  said :  "Out  of  the  princi- 
ples of  Luther  have  been  evolved  the  representative  government, 
the  free  institutions,  and  the  liberty,  equality  and  fraternity 
which  are  the  birthright  of  every  American  citizen."  And  in  the 
same  line  Dr.  Dorchester  has  declared :  "In  the  Lutheran  Refor- 
mation a  new  people  was  begotten,  with  new  ideas,  invested  with 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  349 

loftier  prerogatives  and  aims,  and  intended  by  Providence  to 
found  in  the  new  world  a  great  Christian  republic,  one  of  the 
mightiest  agencies  in  human  progress." 

England,  the  land  of  the  great  Charter  of  Rights  contended  for 
successfully  in  1215  at  Runnymede,  the  land  of  the  Puritan,  of 
Oliver  Cromwell,  the  long  Parliament  and  the  Commonwealth ; 
the  land  of  Pym,  Hampden  and  John  Milton — England  did  not 
originate,  but  was  only  instrumental  in  transplanting  those  prin- 
ciples of  liberty  which  have  brought  forth  so  abundantly  in  this 
new  land.  In  his  famous  speech,  made  at  Bunker  Hill,  in  1843, 
from  which  we  have  already  quoted,  Daniel  Webster  said : 
"The  spirit  of  commercial  and  foreign  adventure  on  the  one  hand, 
and  on  the  other,  the  assertion  and  maintenance  of  religious 
liberty,  having  their  source  in  the  Reformation,  and  this  love  of 
religious  liberty  drawing  after  it  or  bringing  along  with  it,  as  it 
always  does,  an  ardent  devotion  to  the  principle  of  civil  liberty 
also,  were  the  powerful  influences  under  which  character  was 
formed  and  men  trained  for  the  great  work  of  introducing  Eng- 
lish civilization,  English  law,  and,  what  is  more  than  all,  Anglo- 
Saxon  blood,  into  the  wilderness  of  North  America." 

In  an  able  essay  on  the  "Foundation  of  the  American  Colonies," 
in  which  the  view  is  maintained  that  the  success  of  the  war  for 
the  independence  of  the  American  colonies  was  perhaps  in  itself 
a  gain  to  Great  Britain  as  well  as  to  this  country,  Professor  Gold- 
win  Smith  says :  "The  American  colonies  are  the  offspring  of 
humanity  at  a  more  advanced  stage  and  in  a  nobler  mood.  They 
arose  from  discontent,  not  with  exhausted  pastures,  but  with  in- 
stitutions that  were  waxing  old  and  a  faith  that  was  ceasing  to  be 
divine.  They  are  monuments  of  that  vast  and  various  move- 
ment of  humanity,  the  significance  of  which  is  but  half  expressed 
b)r  the  name  of  the  Reformation." 

It  was  no  less  of  a  preacher  and  patriot  than  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  who  affirmed  that  "our  civil  liberty  is  the  result  of  the 
open  Bible  which  Luther  gave  us." 

In  1883,  in  a  memorable  address  by  a  distinguished  English 
bishop  on  the  occasion  of  the  celebration  of  the  four  hundredth 
anniversary  of  the  birth  of  Luther,  it  was  said:  "The  free  mil- 
lions of  the  United  States  may  well  rise  up  and  do  Luther  honor 
bv  cherishing  his  example,  pondering  his  history,  and  maintaining 
his  creed" ;  while  a  noted  Unitarian  scholar,  who  was  a  graduate 


350         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

of  Harvard,  said  that  "To  Martin  Luther  above  all  men  we 
Anglo-Americans  are  indebted  for  national  independence  and 
mental  freedom !"  Charles  Dudley  Warner  is  quoted  by  Dr.  Pre- 
served Smith  as  having  said  that  "Every  man  in  western  Europe 
and  in  America  is  leading  a  different  life  today  from  what  he 
would  have  led  had  Martin  Luther  not  lived,"  while  a  great 
Frenchman  has  declared  that  "The  republic  of  America  is  a 
corollary  of  the  Reformation." 

These  expressions  of  opinion  regarding  the  genesis  of  Amer- 
ican institutions  are  not  in  harmony  with  the  theory  that  has 
sometimes  been  advocated,  that  those  institutions  find  their  origin 
in  a  period  following  Luther.  The  birth  of  the  Lutheran  move- 
ment in  Europe  marked  also  the  birth  of  our  liberties.  They  arose 
as  the  harvest  of  that  sowing  when,  as  Calvin  said,  "The  pure 
Gospel  was  restored"  by  the  "Apostle  at  Wittenberg." 

In  his  recent  book,  entitled  "The  Religious  Foundations  of 
America,"  Dr.  Charles  L.  Thompson,  with  a  true  insight  into  the 
genius  of  American  history,  says  that  "the  Reformation  of  re- 
ligion in  the  sixteenth  century  determined  the  subsequent  history 
of  Europe  and  shaped  the  American  republic.  The  stroke  of 
Luther's  hammer  on  the  W'ittenberg  door  was  Thor's  hammer  to 
shatter  the  ecclesiasticism  of  the  Dark  Ages  and  break  open  a 
path  of  religious  life  and  hope  which  brought  on  the  new  day  of 
all  following  centuries.  It  broke  the  shackles  which  held  men 
to  a  dead  formalism  and  released  the  spirit  of  inquiry  by  which 
the  world  came  to  its  charter  of  religious  liberty."  Of  the  chief 
of  the  reformers  and  the  relation  to  his  work  to  liberty,  he 
further  says :  "At  whatever  stage  of  his  career  we  regard  him 
he  is  easily  one  of  the  most  interesting — as  always  one  of  the  most 
commanding — figures  of  history.  Whether  a  seeking  soul  and 
climbing  the  stairway  in  Rome,  or  with  leonine  daring  confronting 
the  powers  of  an  empire  at  Worms,  or  trumpet-tongued  proclaim- 
ing to  great  universities  or  to  the  common  people  the  new  gospel 
of  spiritual  and  intellectual  liberty,  he  was — under  God — the 
maker  of  a  new  Europe,  and  through  Europe  the  foundation 
builder  of  civil  and  religious  freedom  in  America." 

Another  of  our  recent  historians  is  Professor  Carl  Becker.  In 
his  book  entitled  "Beginnings  of  the  American  People,"  he  says: 
"The  origin  of  New  England  is  inseparably  connected  with  the 
Protestant  Reformation,  that  many-sided  movement  of  which  no 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  351 

formula  is  adequate  to  convey  the  full  meaning."  "The  Ref- 
ormation," he  goes  on,  "was  far  more  than  resistance  to  Rome. 
It  did  not  cease  when  the  king  triumphed  over  the  pope.  The 
dissidence  of  dissent  and  the  Protestantism  of  the  Protestant  re- 
ligion was  as  incompatible  with  the  royal  as  with  priestly  author- 
ity. It  was  generally  true  that  Protestantism  was  the  result  of  a 
middle  class  revolt  against  the  existing  regime,  a  denial  of 
established  standards  in  politics  and  morality,  the  determined  at- 
tempt to  effect  a  transvaluation  of  all  customary  values." 

XIII 

There  are  no  blind  forces  even  in  nature  and  its  processes. 
There  are  discoverable,  always,  in  that  sphere  of  investigation  the 
evidences  of  design  and  wonderful  adjustment.  And  so  in  his- 
tory the  observant  student,  as  he  contemplates  the  manifest  dis- 
plays of  wise  design,  may  well  say  in  the  words  of  the  Scrip- 
tures: "The  eyes  of  the  Lord  run  to  and  fro  throughout  the 
whole  earth."  Schlegel,  one  of  the  leading  writers  on  the  philos- 
ophy of  history,  has  said  that  no  such  philosophy  can  be  con- 
structed, save  by  the  recognition  of  a  providential  purpose  which 
pervades  all  events  and  links  them  together  in  unity. 

In  the  revelations  of  providential  dealings  in  the  Bible  the  de- 
signs of  Providence  are  not  left  to  be  judged  of  by  our  fallible 
human  sagacity,  but  are  often  so  clearly  revealed  as  to  show  us 
the  meaning  of  things  obscure  and  the  real  working  of  things 
sometimes  apparently  antagonistic.  Not  only  athesim,  which  is 
the  denial  of  God,  and  Deism,  which  eliminates  God  from  the 
management  of  God's  world,  but  the  much  exploited  agnostic 
scheme  of  our  day — which  ignores  God  or  treats  Him  as  the 
eternal  why,  to  which  no  man  lias  replied;  the  infinite  enigma, 
which  no  sphinx  has  solved — deal  deadly  blows  not  only  at  re- 
vealed religion,  but  likewise  at  human  liberty  and  civilization. 
Dissociated  from  the  divine  oversight  and  direction  of  the  God 
of  nature,  not  only,  but  the  God  of  history  as  well,  the  story  of 
men  and  their  movements  leads  us  only  into  a  maze  in  which  we 
blindly  grope  about  without  design  or  plan  or  end  in  view.  To 
thoughtful  minds  there  are  always  manifest  the  marks  of  an  in- 
finitely wise  design  in  the  timeliness  of  the  great  events  in  history. 
in  the  fact  that  such  great  and  important  events  have  occurred 


352    LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

opportunely  at  the  fulness  of  time,  that  they  came  at  the  long- 
prepared  moment  before  which  or  after  which  they  would  have 
failed  of  their  purposed  result.  The  arguments  in  behalf  of  the 
theory  of  wise  design  in  creation  to  be  found  in  the  pages  of 
Paley's  evidences,  and  of  the  Bridgewater  treatises  of  a  past 
period  in  the  history  of  apologetics,  are  hardly  more  impressive 
and  conclusive  than  the  fact  of  the  divine  opportuneness  of  the 
discovery  of  this  land  and  its  settlement  by  European  peoples,  as 
well  as  other  great  events  in  our  history. 

The  discovery  and  settlement  of  this  country  have  an  import- 
ance far  beyond  that  which  belongs  to  them  as  incidents  in  the 
records  of  Anglo-Saxon  peoples.  The  chief  significance  attach- 
ing to  those  events  is  found  in  the  transference  to  this  new  world 
of  all  that  was  best  in  the  ideas  and  traditions  of  liberty  which 
had  been  handed  down  from  the  matured  civilizations  of  the  past. 
There  was  a  manifest  fitness  of  time  in  the  discovery  of  America 
in  the  fact  that  this  mystery,  hidden  from  the  ancient  world,  and 
dreamed  of  only  in  the  visions  of  poets  and  philosophers,  should 
not  have  been  disclosed  until  the  dawn  before  the  sunrise  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  Discovered  one  hundred  years  earlier,  the 
new  world  could  hardly  have  been  a  new  world,  but  only  a 
reproduction  on  this  new  continent  of  the  old  world  with  its 
effete  institutions,  customs,  oppressive  ecclesiasticism  and  tyran- 
nical statecraft.  But  Providence  seems  to  have  kept  the  most 
valuable  thing  in  the  new  world  from  notice  until  a  fit  and  quali- 
fied people  should  be  prepared  to  occupy  it.  God,  in  His  wise 
plans  and  designs,  seems  to  have  kept  back  the  whole  continent 
from  discovery  until  the  peoples  of  Europe  had  contended  for  the 
principles  embodied  in  Protestantism  and  had  reached  that  stage 
of  social  development  at  which  they  were  competent  to  become 
successful  emigrants  and  the  founders  of  new  states. 

The  discoverers  of  this  country  were  Roman  Catholics,  and  in 
consequence  papal  governments  promptly  claimed  the  results  of 
the  discoveries.  The  new  land  was  taken  possession  of  in  the 
name  of  their  faith  and  their  sovereigns.  They  had  come,  as  we 
have  seen,  largely  impelled  by  a  secular  impulse.  The  horizon  of 
enterprise  had  been  greatly  widened,  and  the  spirit  of  maritime 
adventure  had  been  aroused.  The  Italians  held  the  highway  of 
the  Mediterranean  to  commerce  with  India  through  Asia  Minor, 
the  Red  Sea,  the  Caucasus  and  Persia,  and  new  ocean  pathways 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  353 

to  the  Far  East  were  eagerly  sought.  Seeking  thus  an  aqueous 
highway  to  the  opulent  lands  of  the  East,  these  papal  mariners 
found  a  new  world  in  the  West  and  claimed  it  as  their  own.  But 
twenty-five  years  after  the  discovery  of  this  land  by  Columbus, 
which  he  regarded  to  his  dying  day  as  the  other  side  of  India. 
Luther,  passing  the  dragon-guarded  portals  of  that  vast  hierarchy 
which  had  been  consolidating  for  a  thousand  years,  and  which, 
through  all  its  vicissitudes,  had  endured  from  the  days  of  Leo  I 
to  Leo  X,  had  roused  the  world  of  his  day  with  the  cries  of 
reformation  and  revolution.  There  was  not  room  enough  on  the 
old  continent  for  the  antagonistic  principles  that  had  been  quick- 
ened into  new  life  and  energy  to  fight  out  the  great  contests  that 
were  enkindled,  and  singularly  enough  there  followed  the  emi- 
gration of  the  peoples  of  separate  religions  to  this  land.  They 
came,  both  Romanist  and  Protestant. 

In  the  discovery  and  early  settlement  of  the  North  American 
continent,  the  discerning  man  would  at  once  have  said,  this  land 
will  be  a  Spanish  colony,  and  its  religion  will  be  dictated  from 
Rome.  Nothing  could  have  withstood,  he  would  have  said,  the 
devotion  of  religious  leaders  who  were  ready  to  crown  their 
ambitions  with  martyrdom.  As  late  as  the  middle  of  the  six- 
teenth century  the  historical  prophet  would  have  declared  that 
this  country  was  assuredly  destined  to  be  dominated  by  a  Spanish 
civilization,  that  it  would  become  what  Mexico  and  South 
America  are  to  this  day.  The  greatest  of  modern  geographers 
has  said  that  "the  best  book  on  natural  theology  is  a  physical 
geography,"  meaning  thereby  that  national  history  has  been 
shaped  in  no  small  degree  by  the  conformation  of  continents  and 
the  disposition  of  islands.  On  this  the  geographer  only  echoes 
the  words  of  Moses,  who  said :  "When  the  Most  High  divided 
to  the  nations  their  inheritance,  when  he  separated  the  sons  of 
Adam,  He  set  the  bounds  of  the  people,  according  to  the  number 
of  the  children  of  Israel."  The  Almighty,  in  the  far-reaching 
counsels  of  the  divine  wisdom,  had  His  plans  for  the  American 
continent  even  before  there  was  an  American  people. 

If  ever  the  hand  of  God  was  evident  in  national  history  it  was 
in  the  time  of  the  real  colonization  of  this  country,  the  character 
of  the  colonists,  the  inspiring  purposes  which  brought  them  here 
and  the  religious  principles  that  dominated  them.  The  doctrines 
that  had  remade  the  intellectual  and  moral  life  of  Europe,  which 


354    LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

had  been  stated  and  formulated  in  the  north  and  not  the  south  of 
that  continent,  were  back  of  the  migration  of  strong  peoples  who 
came  hither.  They  came  not  from  the  shores  of  the  southern 
Mediterranean,  but  from  the  more  rugged  regions  of  England, 
the  Rhine  and  the  North  Sea.  For  a  long  period  it  seemed  that 
this  country  was  to  belong  to  Rome,  and  that  it  was  destined  to  be 
dominated  by  medieval  papal  conceptions.  The  most  powerful 
nation  of  Europe  then  was  not  England  or  Germany,  but  France. 
In  the  year  1611,  the  king  of  that  country,  Louis  XIII,  gave  to 
the  Jesuits  all  the  territory  stretching  from  the  St.  Lawrence  to 
Florida.  There  ensued  a  struggle  between  despotism  and  free- 
dom for  the  possession  of  a  continent.  The  sublime  scheme  of 
conquest  matured  in  the  minds  of  French  statesmen  and  eccles- 
iastics contemplated  a  long  line  of  military  posts  and  mission 
stations,  stretching  along  the  course  of  great  rivers  and  reaching 
from  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Lawrence  to  that  of  the  Mississippi. 
Explorers,  traders  and  priests  pressed  their  way  up  great  rivers, 
into  and  across  the  regions  of  our  great  inland  lakes,  and  thence 
on  into  the  vast  and  resourceful  interior  valley,  setting  up  the  ban- 
ners and  the  cross  of  the  papal  dominion  and  claiming  the  whole 
vast  and  promising  region  in  the  name  of  their  king  and  the  pope. 
Lender  the  intrepid  leadership  of  explorers  like  La  Salle  and 
Joliet,  the  Jesuit  missionary  priests,  like  Father  Marquette,  a 
plan  of  temporal  and  spiritual  empire  had  been  magnificently 
conceived,  sagaciously  planned  and  was  being  heroically  pursued. 
The  hardy  courage  of  the  French  explorers,  the  devoted  lives  and 
martyr  deaths  of  those  French  Jesuit  missionaries,  the  account  of 
which  is  told  in  the  charming  pages  of  Francis  Parkman,  are  not 
surpassed  in  the  history  of  Christian  conquest.  Backed  by  a 
powerful  nation  and  the  papal  hierarchy,  directed  by  a  statesman 
like  Richelieu  and  a  pope  like  Gregory  XV,  the  valley  of  the 
Mississippi  was  explored  and  every  foot  of  it  claimed  for  France 
and  Rome.  From  Niagara  to  Fort  Duquesne,  and  from  the 
Straits  of  Mackinaw  to  the  mouth  of  the  great  river,  garrisons 
were  stationed,  and  the  priest  was  in  control.  In  marked  con- 
trast with  this  gigantic  scheme  were  the  feeble  plantations  of  the 
English  colonists  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  without  common 
organization  or  mutual  sympathy,  and  of  diverse  creeds  and  aims. 
Thus  it  seemed  that  three  great  nations  were  in  a  state  of 
rivalry  regarding  the  possession  of  the  new  world.     Spain  had 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  355 

extended  her  dominions  along  the  southern  borders  of  the  conti- 
nent and  far  up  into  the  interior  and  along  the  shores  of  the 
western  Pacific.  France  had  established  her  outpost  from  Que- 
bec to  the  Mississippi.  The  Pilgrim,  the  Puritan,  the  Dutch,  the 
Swede,  the  Quaker  and  the  German  had  not  yet  come.  Only  a 
little  company  of  English  gentlemen  were  settled  on  the  James 
River  and  a  few  Dutch  sailors  were  building  huts  on  Manhattan 
Island.  To  one  who  should  have  regarded  events  with  the  eye 
that  sees  only  the  things  that  are  visible  and  tangible,  the  cause 
of  Protestantism  in  the  new  world  would  have  appeared  hopeless. 
It  seemed  probable  that  Spanish  priests  and  soldiers  would  hold 
the  southern  half  of  North  America  and  equally  probable  that 
the  lilies  of  France  would  control  the  northern  half.  It  seemed 
inevitable,  if  the  forces  of  Romanism  in  Spain  and  France  should 
combine,  that  the  Protestant  settlements  on  the  James,  on  Man- 
hattan Island,  and  in  New  England  should  be  ground  to  dust 
between  upper  and  nether  millstones. 

But  these  magnificent  schemes  of  territorial  expansion  and  re- 
ligious propagandism  failed.  God's  plans  are  not  man's  plans, 
and  the  divine  Omniscience  scanned  the  future  of  this  land  with 
an  unerring  wisdom.  In  the  divine  counsels  this  continent  was  to 
be  reserved  for  the  open  Bible  and  republican  institutions.  It 
was  to  be  dominated  at  the  beginnings  by  principles  that  came 
from  Wittenberg  and  Geneva,  rather  than  by  those  which  bore  the 
stamp  of  Rome.  The  white  lilies  of  France  and  the  castles  of 
Spain  faded  from  the  banners  and  were  replaced  by  better  em- 
blems. The  two  most  powerful  nations  of  the  then  known  world 
lost  out  in  their  fight  to  subdue  the  pioneers  of  popular  govern- 
ment and  the  friends  of  a  free  and  open  Bible.  Not  even  the 
historical  pages  of  the  Old  Testament  disclose  more  clearly  a 
divine  purpose  and  leadership  than  does  American  history  in  the 
early  years  of  the  seventeenth  century,  when  the  French  colonies 
languished  and  Canada  fell  under  British  rule,  and  when  later,  in 
the  vicissitudes  of  war,  the  Mississippi  Valley  was  transferred  to 
the  American  republic  by  the  Louisiana  purchase. 

The  strange  and  romantic  fact  about  the  conflicts  from  1609, 
as  has  been  pointed  out,  is  that  even  the  American  Indian  seems 
to  have  been  a  providential  factor ;  that  these  primitive  people, 
whom  all  the  parties  regarded  with  suspicion  and  hatred,  should 
have  had  a  place  in  determining  that  not  France  but  England  and 


356         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

Holland  should  control  American  destiny.  In  the  critical  times 
of  those  early  conflicts,  the  powerful  Iroquois  nation,  the  deadly 
enemy  of  France,  became  the  ally  of  the  Dutch,  so  that  thus 
indirectly  the  little  Protestant  company  on  Manhattan  Island  had 
some  share  in  the  fall  of  Quebec,  and  the  destruction  of  French 
claims  in  the  new  world.  John  Fiske  says :  "Had  the  Iroquois 
been  the  allies  of  the  French  it  would  in  all  probability  have  been 
Louis  XIV  and  not  Charles  II  who  would  have  taken  New  Am- 
sterdam from  the  Dutch.  Had  the  Iroquois  not  been  the  deadly 
enemy  of  the  French,  Louis  XIV  could  almost  certainly  have 
taken  New  York  from  the  English."  So  strangely  did  God  pro- 
tect His  great  purpose  for  this  continent  that  with  all  its  resources 
it  was  held  in  reserve  for  ages,  that  within  its  ample  borders  a 
new  order  in  the  political  life  of  man  might  here  be  inaugurated. 
That  which  in  the  first  instance  was  only  an  exploring  expedition, 
undertaken  for  finding  a  new  passage  to  the  Orient,  became  the 
determining  event  which  should  shape  the  world's  greatest  ad- 
venture in  behalf  of  free  government  and  free  religion. 

It  was  out  of  Europe,  rent  asunder  by  disputes  about  the  greatest 
and  most  interesting  questions,  that  the  serious-minded  settlers 
of  this  country  came.  For  the  most  part  they  came  from  the 
communities  and  the  classes  which  had  passed  through  the  fires 
kindled  by  Luther's  theses  in  1517.  and  his  memorable  stand  at 
Worms  in  1521.  In  1555,  at  the  end  of  his  long  and  troublous 
reign,  and  dejected  over  the  failure  of  his  cherished  plans, 
Charles  V  abdicated  the  throne  of  Spain  in  behalf  of  his  son, 
Philip  II.  Soon  after  his  accession  Philip  undertook  to  crush 
our  Protestantism  in  Holland.  Bigoted,  narrow,  unscrupulous 
and  remorseless  in  purpose,  he  determined  to  signalize  his  reign 
by  restoring  both  papal  and  imperial  authority  in  the  Netherlands, 
placing  the  execution  of  the  task  in  the  hands  of  the  brutal  and 
merciless  Duke  of  Alva.  The  story  of  the  struggle  of  that  heroic 
people  for  life,  liberty  and  their  homes,  conducted  under  the 
leadership  and  inspiration  of  William  of  Orange,  is  one  of  the 
most  thrilling  in  the  annals  of  the  human  race.  In  the  face  of 
their  burning  homes  and  ruined  cities,  the  horrors  of  the  stake, 
the  dungeon,  famine  and  starvation,  the  stout-hearted  burghers 
and  peasantry  of  the  low  countries  stood  for  conscience  and  free- 
dom until  at  last  they  won  their  national  independence  and  the 
blessings  of  religious  liberty. 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  357 

Scarcely  had  that  struggle  died  away  when  the  famous  Thirty 
Years'  War  burst  upon  Protestant  Germany.  It  was  during  this 
struggle  for  the  principles  of  the  Reformation,  that  Gustavus 
Adolphus,  the  "Lion  of  the  North,"  came  down  from  Sweden 
with  his  brave  countrymen,  at  a  time  when  Germany  was  crushed 
and  bleeding  under  the  tread  of  the  imperial  armies  led  by  the 
papal  generals,  Wallenstein  and  Tilly.  The  brave  Swede  suc- 
ceeded in  reviving  the  crushed  and  bleeding  hopes  of  Protestant- 
ism, even  though  his  valuable  life  went  out  amid  the  smoke  and 
carnage  of  the  field  of  Lutzen,  November  6,  1632. 

While  the  Reformation  movement  was  thus  fighting  for  its  life 
on  the  continent  of  Europe,  it  had  crossed  the  channel  and  was 
steadily  making  its  impress  upon  England.  Then  ensued  the 
struggles  leading  up  to  the  execution  of  Charles  the  Stuart  and 
the  establishment  of  the  Commonwealth. 

It  was  only  after  the  successful  issue  of  these  far-reaching 
struggles  in  behalf  of  Protestant  principles  set  forth  and  formu- 
lated in  the  century  preceding,  that  the  real  colonization  of  this 
country  began  in  earnest.  It  is  possible  that  had  all  North 
America  been  settled  before  the  time  of  Cromwell,  the  feebleness 
of  the  early  reformed  faith  and  life  of  the  Church  could  not  have 
withstood  the  old  faith,  and  successfully  resisted  its  prestige  and 
power.  This,  however,  is  certain,  that  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence and  the  Federal  Constitution  never  would  have  been 
written  had  not  Luther  nailed  his  theses  upon  the  church  door 
and  made  his  valorous  stand  at  Worms  for  principles  which  were 
back  of,  and  under,  and  in,  the  conflicts  of  Holland,  Germany  and 
England  in  the  next  century.  God  in  His  far-reaching  provi- 
dence put  Christianity  on  a  new  trial  here  along  with  the  perse- 
cuted seekers  after  liberty,  and  the  result  was  the  establishment 
of  a  democratic  republic  upon  a  large  scale.  The  first  thing 
Protestantism  did  on  this  continent  was  the  republic  itself.  Our 
civil  heritage  from  the  Reformation  is  the  republic  inspired  by 
Protestant  ideas  of  liberty  and  shaped  after  patterns  of  govern- 
ment found  in  the  Protestant  churches.  The  Reformation  did 
not  contend  for  liberty  in  the  first  instance,  but  for  evangelical 
truth,  but  wherever  that  form  of  truth  triumphed,  liberty  tri- 
umphed also.  It  is  of  vast  historical  significance  that  the  first 
men  to  die  on  this  continent  for  the  sake  of  conscience  and  re- 
ligious liberty  were  those  who  laid  down  their  lives  in  behalf  of 


358    LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

those  Protestant  principles  which  made  the  republic  possible. 
Bancroft  tells  us  that  outside  of  Mexico  the  very  first  colony  in 
North  America  was  the  Protestant  colony  planted  by  that  great 
Frenchman  of  indomitable  patience  and  steadfastness,  Admiral 
Coligny,  and  that  Jesuit  priests  stained  the  soil  of  the  new  world 
with  the  blood  of  these  colonists  solely  for  the  reason  that  they 
were  adherents  of  the  principles  and  doctrines  of  the  Lutheran 
Reformation.  In  France  the  new  movement  had  encountered 
enemies  in  the  court,  the  church  and  the  majority  of  the  people,  and 
those  who  became  adherents  of  the  new  faith  were  compelled  to 
face  peculiarly  difficult  problems.  The  faith  they  confessed  was 
intolerable  to  the  ruler  of  the  land,  while  the  duty  their  con- 
sciences demanded  of  them  the  state  declared  to  be  a  duty  that 
could  not  be  permitted.  Distressed  over  the  condition  of  his 
countrymen  of  the  same  faith,  Coligny  resolved,  if  possible,  to 
find  an  asylum  for  his  people  in  the  new  world,  where  they  might 
enjoy  religious  liberty.  He  accordingly  sought  an  interview  with 
Catherine,  the  regent  of  the  young  King  Charles  IX.  The  au- 
dience being  granted,  before  her  he  laid  the  desires  of  his  suffer- 
ing countrymen.  His  appeal  was  granted  in  the  name  of  the 
young  king  and  a  charter  given  under  the  conditions  of  which 
Coligny  was  authorized  to  establish  a  colony  in  that  part  of  the 
new  world  we  now  know  as  the  state  of  Florida.  Three  vessels 
were  speedily  fitted  out,  and  on  the  18th  of  February,  1562,  loaded 
with  French  Protestants,  they  set  sail  for  the  West.  Taking  pos- 
session of  the  land  in  the  name  of  their  young  king,  they  estab- 
lished a  colony  on  the  St.  John's  River. 

Only  a  few  days  after  the  arrival  of  these  colonists  they  saw 
five  ships  coming  in  from  the  sea.  Being  anchored  within  speak- 
ing distance  of  the  Protestant  ships,  among  other  questions  asked 
by  the  members  of  the  invading  squadron  was  this  one:  "Are 
you  Catholics  or  Lutherans?"  To  this  inquiry  this  answer  was 
returned :  "We  are  Lutherans  of  the  new  religion."  Upon  the 
inquiry  being  made  as  to  who  the  invaders  were,  the  ominous  an- 
swer was  returned:  "I  am  Pedro  Menendez,  commander  of  this 
armament,  which  belongs  to  Philip  II,  King  of  Spain.  I  have 
come  hither  to  destroy  and  hang  all  the  Lutherans  I  can  find, 
either  on  land  or  sea,  according  to  my  orders  received  from  the 
king,  which  are  so  precise  as  to  deprive  me  of  the  power  of  saving 
anyone  whatsoever ;  and  these  orders  I  shall  execute  to  the  letter. 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  359 

but  if  I  shall  meet  with  any  Catholic  on  board  your  vessels,  he 
shall  be  treated  with  good  treatment ;  as  for  the  heretics  they 
shall  die."  Menendez  and  his  merciless  Spaniards  fell  upon  those 
French  Protestants,  who  had  come  to  this  land  more  than  half  a 
century  before  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims  or  the  Salem  settle- 
ment of  the  Puritans,  and  no  one  was  spared  upon  whom  they 
could  lay  their  hands.  Men,  women  and  children  were  cruelly 
murdered,  and  over  the  bodies  of  some  of  the  men  who  had  been 
hanged  from  some  of  the  trees,  was  placed  this  inscription, 
"Hung,  not  as  Frenchmen,  but  as  Lutherans."  This  was  the 
first  shedding  of  blood  for  conscience  and  freedom  in  religion  on 
the  American  continent. 

When  we  contemplate,  scrutinize  and  compare  all  the  signal 
events  of  the  history  of  the  peoples  who  have  come  hither  to 
this  goodly  land  and  their  subsequent  development,  we  find  that 
we  are  face  to  face  with  the  manifest  leadership  of  the  Lord  of 
Hosts,  and  we  are  again,  if  we  are  devout  and  discerning,  ready 
to  exclaim  with  the  heathen  prophet  when  he  looked  down  from 
Pisgah  on  the  ordered  tents  of  Israel:  "Surely  the  Lord  their 
God  is  with  them,  and  the  shout  of  a  king  is  among  them !" 
When  the  secrets  of  the  history  of  this  great  people  are  laid  bare, 
and  we  discover  that  God  was  in  the  conditions  and  antecedents 
of  it,  that  one  by  one  He  raised  itp  the  great  men  of  it,  that  He 
controlled  the  critical  events  of  it,  brought  out  the  high  result  of 
it,  and  wrought  it  in  with  the  great  purpose  toward  which  He 
was  leading  on  the  whole  world,  then  we  are  able  to  discern  that 
"key  of  knowledge"  that  unlocks  the  secrets  of  all  history,  and 
which  especially  in  this  our  study  of  the  Protestant  movement 
of  the  sixteenth  century  has  made  plain  to  us  the  hand  of  God  in 
American  history.  There  is  something  more  discoverable  in  our 
history  than  that  gross  materialism  that  declares  our  destiny  to 
have  been  controlled  solely  by  conditions  of  soil  and  climate  and 
the  habitual  food  of  the  people.  The  comprehensive  truth,  which 
includes  all  these  and  more,  is  that  which  is  set  forth  through  all 
the  pages  of  the  Old  Testament,  that  "the  earth  is  the  Lord's,  and 
He  is  governor  among  the  nations." 

Mr.  Mallock  somewhere  says:  "In  the  infinite  hush  of  space 
there  is  that  one  sound — the  tides  of  human  history,  like  the 
moaning  of  the  homeless  sea."  But  any  survey  of  the  provi- 
dential  factor  in  the   settlement  and  ordering  of  this  continent 


360         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

shows  plainly  that  the  history  of  this  great  people  has  been 
neither  chartless  nor  homeless.  Perhaps  the  most  significant  event 
in  the  modern  era  has  been  the  peopling  of  the  new  world  and 
the  maturing  of  the  spirit  of  nationality  within  all  the  borders  of 
this  northern  continent.  Here  not  only  religion,  but  likewise  our 
i  democracy  and  our  civic  institutions,  owe  much  to  Luther.  As 
I  Prof.  Preserved  Smith  has  said  in  an  article  in  the  January, 
1918,  number  of  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra:  "There  never  was  a  more 
essentially  democratic  message  than  that  of  the  excellence  of  the 
humblest  Christian  and  the  perfect  equality  of  all  before  God" — 
truths  restated  and  successfully  reaffirmed  by  Luther.  "No  spe- 
cial pleading  by  partisans  of  Rome  can  ever  shut  out  from  candid 
\  inquirers  the  fact  that  the  principles  dating  from  the  apostolic 
era  of  Christianity  and  reaffirmed  by  Luther  in  the  sixteenth 
century  started  this  great  and  powerful  republic  on  its  way  among 
the  greatest  peoples  of  the  earth." 

When  we  congratulate  ourselves  because  of  the  liberties  we  en- 
joy, we  are  at  least  liable  to  forget  their  relation  to  antecedent 
movements — that,  which  is  never  denied  by  competent  historians, 
democracy  as  we  know  it  is  not  only  rooted  and  grounded  in 
Christianity,  but  that  it  was  started  on  its  triumphant  way  in 
modern  times  by  the  reaffirmation  in  the  Lutheran  movement  of 
the  sixteenth  century  of  the  principles  we  have  considered.  We 
are  accustomed  to  rehearse  with  a  warranted  pride  certain  great 
raid  outstanding  historical  facts  in  our  nation's  history,  but  we 
sometimes  are  unmindful  of  the  fact  that  some  of  the  most  con- 
spicuous of  them  never  would  have  occurred  had  it  not  been  for 
the  successful  issue  of  conflicts  of  an  earlier  time. 

Three  of  the  greatest  documentary  possessions  of  the  English 
speaking  people  are,  first,  the  Great  Charter  of  Rights  extorted 
from  the  unwilling  hands  of  King  John  by  the  barons  of  England 
at  Runnymede,  July  19,  1215.  The  Great  Charter  guaranteed 
to  Englishmen  rights  of  which  they  had  long  been  deprived.  It 
laid  the  foundations  of  the  freedom  of  the  common  people,  for  it 
compelled  the  crown  to  promise  that  right  or  justice  be  not  sold, 
or  refused,  or  delayed ;  that  no  freeman  be  imprisoned  or  out- 
lawed, or  deprived  of  his  goods,  or  otherwise  punished,  except 
by  the  judgment  of  his  peers,  according  to  the  known  laws  and 
other  rights  which  date  back  almost  eight  hundred  years,  to  Simon 
De  Montfort  and  his  brave  companions,  who  so  bravely  resisted 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  361 

a  dangerous  despot  and  won  those  liberties  which  English  freemen 
have  carried  wherever  they  have  settled.  In  their  claim,  fre- 
quently made,  that  this  was  a  victory  of  Rome  in  behalf  of 
human  rights,  it  is  always  forgotten  by  papal  historians  that  the 
reigning  pope  of  the  time,  the  powerful  Innocent  III,  championed 
the  cause  of  the  king,  who  was  his  vassal,  against  the  cause  of 
the  barons;  that  he  called  a  council,  annulled  the  Magna  Charta, 
issued  a  manifesto  against  the  barons,  and  ordered  the  bishops 
to  excommunicate  them. 

The  second  of  these  great  documents,  and  one  in  which  we 
have  special  pride,  is  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  signed  at 
Philadelphia  by  representatives  of  the  thirteen  American  colonies, 
then  in  revolt  against  the  tyranny  of  the  British  crown,  July  4, 
1776.  It  was  because  of  the  fact  that  certain  rights  contended 
for  by  the  barons  and  embodied  in  the  Great  Charter  were  denied 
to  the  American  colonists  that  those  men  in  1776  resolved  to 
sever  the  bonds  that  bound  them  to  England,  and  to  declare  that 
henceforth  a  few  feeble  colonies  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard 
ought  of  right  to  be  free  and  independent  states.  It  was  not  the 
first  time  that  a  rebellious  people  had  set  up  for  themselves,  and 
that  men  tired  of  an  oppressive  monarchy  had  launched  a  new 
republic.  But  it  was  the  time  when  it  was  done  with  unparalleled 
success.  Those  revolutionary  fathers  preferred  success  to  hang- 
ing, and  they  pushed  their  preference  with  marvelous  wisdom 
and  tremendous  determination.  They  were  given  one  of  the 
greatest  opportunities  of  the  ages  and  were  thoroughly  equal 
to  it,  doing  courageously,  wisely  and  permanently  the  right  thing 
at  the  right  time.  In  the  stately  rhetoric  of  Thomas  Jefferson, 
in  the  famous  declaration,  we  observe  the  spirit  of  the  barons  of 
Runny  mede. 

Nearly  ninety  years  later  than  the  declaration  made  at  Phila- 
delphia, and  nearly  seven  hundred  years  after  the  Great  Charter, 
standing  amid  the  graves  of  fallen  heroes  on  a  famous  Pennsyl- 
vania battlefield,  in  a  few  marvelous  sentences,  Abraham  Lin- 
coln stated  the  principles  which  lay  at  the  root  of  our  great 
Civil  War — that  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people  and 
for  the  people  might  not  perish  from  the  earth.  If  competent  his- 
torians and  interpreters  are  correct,  that  declaration  never  would 
have  been  made,  and  that  famous  speech  of  the  nation's  most 
loved  President  would  have  been  unsaid,  had  it  not  been  for  the 


362         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

successful  conflict  waged  for  the  popular  principles  of  the  uni- 
versal priesthood  of  all  believers  and  the  right  of  private  judg- 
ment two  hundred  and  fifty  and  three  hundred  and  fifty  years 
earlier  in  the  stirring  days  of  the  Lutheran  Reformation. 

Our  people  recite  with  pride  the  lines  which  tell  of  the  resist- 
ance of  our  fathers  and  their  contention  for  their  rights : 

"By  the  rude  bridge  that  spanned  the  flood 
They  flung  their  flag  to  April's  breeze ; 
Here  once  the  embattled  farmer  stood 

And  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world." 

They  are  moved  by  the  inscription  of  the  famous  words  of 
Captain  Parker  at  Lexington,  words  which  memorialize  those 
loyal  "minute  men"  who  had  been  sleeping  at  nights  with  guns  in 
the  corners  of  their  rooms : 

"Stand  your  ground ; 
Don't  fire  unless  fired  upon, 
But  if  they  mean  to  have  war 
Let  it  begin  here." 

They  are  fond  of  reciting  the  story  of  the  famous  ride  of  Paul 
Revere,  the  man  who  deserves  his  honor  and  his  fame,  and  of 
the  far  less-known  patriot,  Newman,  the  man  who  hung  out  the 
signal  lantern  in  the  belfry  of  the  old  North  Church,  when  the 
patriot  who  had 

"Watched  with  eager  search, 
The  belfry  tower  of  that  old 
North  Church" 

knew  that  it  was  time  for  him  to  ride. 

"He  springs  to  the  saddle,  the  bridle  he  turns; 
The  fate  of  a  nation  was  riding  that  night, 
And  the  spark  struck  out  by  that  steed  in  his  flight 
Kindled  the  land  into  flame  with  its  heat." 

But  if  men  have  interpreted  events  correctly,  if  such  historians 
as  Carlyle  and  Froude  and  others  are  right,  the  words  of  Captain 
Parker  never  would  have  been  said.  The  shot  "heard  round  the 
world"  would  never  have  been  fired,  and  the  famous  ride  of  Paul 
Revere  never  have  been  made  or  thought  of  as  a  signal  to  call  alert 
and  prepared  patriots  to  arms,  had  it  not  been  for  earlier  conflicts 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  363 

in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  in  Germany,  Holland, 
France  and  England.  ' 

These  incidents  in  our  national  history,  which  so  warm  our 
hearts  and  stimulate  our  devotion,  at  the  last  hark  back  to  one 
heroic  man,  who,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  made  the  break  with 
Rome,  flung  down  the  first  gage  of  battle,  took  the  brunt  of  the 
deadliest  storm  ever  encountered  by  any  single  man ;  who,  whether 
studied  as  reformer,  theologian,  preacher  or  organizer,  stands  in 
a  place  that  is  unique  and  solitary;  who  has  left  the  stamp  of  his 
great  personality  clearly  marked  on  all  that  is  best  in  modern  his- 
tory, and  who,  in  the  fundamental  principles  for  which  he  con- 
tended, has  issued  the  greatest  of  all  proclamations  of  emancipa- 
tion from  bigotry,  superstition  and  bondage. 


XIV 

Our  study  of  the  great  movement  of  the  sixteenth  century  has 
led  us  to  view  it  as  many-sided  in  its  aspects  and  as  fraught  with 
consequences  of  vast  importance  for  the  years  which  have  fol- 
lowed. The  leaders  in  that  movement  had  indeed  to  face  the 
task  of  combating  the  errors  and  abuses  of  the  papacy.  In  their 
time  the  classes  and  orders  in  the  Church  which  should  have 
wrought  for  righteousness  were  largely  and  deeply  touched  with 
evil.  But  even  then  in  the  face  of  the  manifold  evils  of  the  day 
there  were  examples  of  sterling  and  devout  piety.  Those  re- 
formers wrought  in  a  period  marked  by  love  of  ostentation  and 
of  worldly  pomp  which  led  to  ruinous  extravagance.  There  were 
vast  accretions  of  puerility,  tradition  and  superstition  to  be  en- 
countered. Friars,  monks,  priests,  prelates  and  even  popes,  the 
so-called  vicars  of  Christ  and  alleged  vicegerents  of  God,  were 
debased  in  idleness,  dissoluteness,  covetousness,  hypocrisy,  hard- 
ness of  heart,  extravagance  and  unwarranted  and  unscriptural 
assumptions.  The  popes  in  succession  were  accustomed  to  fill 
high  places  of  dignity  and  ecclesiastical  benefices  with  men  whose 
chief  qualification  was  a  supposed  willingness  to  do  obedience  to 
their  superiors.  These  reformers,  too,  did  their  work  in  a  time 
of  gross  ignorance,  in  a  period  when  we  read  of  clergy  who  did 
not  know  either  Scripture,  liturgy,  creed  or  the  Lord's  Prayer, 
many  of  whom  could  not  even  read,  and  whose  chief  accomplish- 


364    LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

ments  seem  to  have  been  excess  in  drinking,  gluttony  in  eating, 
and  driving  geese  to  pasture. 

They  led  in  a  revolt  against  abuses  and  a  reformation  of  morals 
among  debased  peoples.  But  this  was  only  a  part,  and  by  no 
means  the  most  important  part,  of  the  work  allotted  them  by  the 
real  Head  of  the  Church,  their  divine  Lord  and  Saviour.  The 
chief  responsibility  laid  upon  them,  and  which  lay  behind  and 
beneath  all  controversies,  was  in  the  appropriation  of  the  saving 
truths  of  the  Scriptures.  In  the  work  of  refuting  error  they 
would  never  nave  been  permanently  successful,  much  less  would 
they  have  been  sustained  in  the  performance  of  it,  had  they  not 
entered  into  the  possession  and  confession  of  positive  truth  drawn 
from  the  Word  of  God.  Their  chief  work,  as  we  have  seen  at 
every  step  in  the  progress  of  this  study,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  that  work  was  a  reaffirmation,  in  forms  called  forth  by  the 
errors  of  the  Romish  Church,  of  all  those  great  evangelical  prin- 
ciples set  forth  in  the  early  age  of  the  Church  by  Christ  and  His 
apostles.  In  emphasizing  the  dominant  idea  that  the  relation  be- 
tween the  invisible  spirit  of  man  and  the  invisible  God  was  im- 
mediate rather  than  mediate  they  made  a  vast  contribution,  not 
only  to  religion,  but  to  the  liberation  of  the  human  mind  from 
priestly  bondage,  and  did  much  for  its  elevation  and  ennoblement 
in  every  sphere  of  its  activity.  In  restoring  the  truths  and  rights 
of  an  evangelical  type  of  Christianity,  Luther  not  only  brought 
about  a  great  religious  revival,  but  also  wrought  many  incidental 
results  of  vast  and  wholesome  influence.  He  not  only  dealt  a 
gigantic  blow  against  Rome,  but  even  rescued  that  ancient  Church 
from  disasters  which  were  inevitable.  The  burden  of  that  move- 
ment was  man's  justification  and  restoration  to  rightful  relations 
to  God.  It  was  a  reassertion  of  the  power  of  apostolical  Chris- 
tianity, and  on  that  basis  the  movement  at  once  assumed  an  atti- 
tude of  conservative  progress.  It  at  once  emphasized  the  dif 
ference  between  two  apprehensions  of  the  Gospel,  showing  the 
pronounced  difference  between  the  two  churches,  differences  con- 
sisting not  simply  in  certain  specific  doctrines,  but  in  a  more  fun- 
damental difference  in  their  whole  conception  of  Christianity.  It 
created  once  more  freedom  of  access  to  God's  Holy  Word,  the 
one  incorrupted  fountain  of  religious  truth,  the  only  infallible 
standard  of  faith  and  practice.  It  liberated  men  from  a  multi- 
tude of  doctrinal  and  practical  corruptions,  which  had  for  cen- 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  365 

turies  been  engrafting  themselves  upon  the  Church.  It  main- 
tained that  all  men  should  not  only  have  freedom  of  access  to 
God,  but  freedom  of  person  and  conscience.  It  inaugurated  po- 
litical freedom  from  papal  tyranny  and  gave  an  impulse  to  civil 
liberty,  which  at  once  made  itself  felt  in  all  the  countries  of 
Europe,  and  which  in  due  time  became  the  corner-stone  of  the 
great  American  Republic.  It  sought  to  break  the  control  of  the 
Church  over  the  state,  and  to  make  all  citizens  equal  before  the 
law.  Its  proclamation  of  the  emancipation  of  the  soul  in- 
augurated what  was  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  mankind.  Under 
its  influence  man  once  more  stood  forth  before  God  in  his  re- 
ligious rights,  and  from  the  heart  of  what  were  distinctively  his 
rights  of  this  order  there  soon  emerged  his  civil  rights.  Of 
Luther's  nailing  the  theses  on  the  church  door  at  Wittenberg  on 
that  famous  eve  of  All  Saints'  Day,  in  1517,  it  has  been  said  that 
it  was  the  beginning  of  the  movement  which  changed  the  poli- 
tical map  of  Europe.  Certain  it  is  that  that  one  act  started  new 
trains  of  religious  thinking,  and  developed  new  methods  in  edu- 
cation, which  have  given  character  to  the  world's  best  and  most 
enlightened  type  of  religion  of  the  last  four  hundred  years,  and 
which  laid  the  foundations  of  all  the  present  freedom  of  thought, 
freedom  of  speech  and  breadth  of  education. 

These  great  changes  were  made  by  men  who  were  not  perfect. 
They  were  inaugurated  by  men  who  were  very  human.  The 
world  today  venerates  Luther,  while  it  does  not  deify  him.  The 
Reformer's  most  ardent  and  sympathetic  friends  do  not  deny  that 
he  had  faults  and  made  mistakes.  Of  him  the  late  Dr.  Krauth 
has  said:  "The  world  knows  his  faults.  He  could  not  hide  what 
he  was.  His  transparent  candor  gave  his  enemies  the  material 
of  their  misrepresentation,  but  they  cannot  blame  his  infirmities 
without  bearing  witness  to  the  nobleness  which  made  him  care- 
less of  appearance  in  a  world  of  defamers.  For  himself,  he  had 
as  little  of  the  virtue  of  caution  as  he  had,  towards  others,  of  the 
vice  of  dissimulation.  Living  under  thousands  of  jealous  and 
hating  eyes,  in  the  broadest  light  of  day,  the  testimony  of  enemies 
but  fixes  the  result :  that  his  faults  were  those  of  a  nature  of  the 
most  consummate  grandeur  and  fulness,  more  precious  than  the 
virtues  of  the  common  great."  But  in  estimating  the  faults  even 
of  such  epoch-making  men,  we  are  to  judge  them  by  the  age  in 
which  they  lived  and  wrought.     Mr.  Lecky  lays  down  a  maxim 


366         LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

which  we  would  do  well  to  remember:  "The  men  of  each  age 
must  be  judged  by  the  ideal  of  their  own  age  and  country,  and 
not  by  the  ideal  of  ours." 

But  whatever,  in  the  way  of  calumny  and  reproach,  may  be 
alleged  against  the  men  who  were  the  leaders  in  effecting  the  great 
change  in  Europe  in  the  sixteenth  century,  this  must  always  be 
set  down  to  their  credit :  they  were  by  no  means  strangers  to 
the  old  medieval  system  against  which  their  forerunners  in  the 
good  work  of  reformation  had  lifted  up  their  voices.  They  were 
sons  of  the  Church,  trained  and  cherished  in  her  own  bosom,  and 
until  they  spoke  their  message  of  reform  honored  and  admired 
her.  That  age  contains  in  the  list  of  its  great  ones  no  greater 
names  in  the  field  of  scholarship  and  capacity  for  popular  leader- 
ship, nor  any  that  have  left  upon  their  times  a  more  lasting  im- 
pression, nor  any  who  have  affected  more  permanently  and  profit- 
ably subsequent  times.  They  were  the  products  of  the  best  uni- 
versity training  available  in  Europe,  combined  with  the  best  ex- 
pression of  monastic  piety.  They  wrote,  preached  and  published, 
and  in  it  all  contended  for  the  "faith  once  for  all  delivered  unto 
the  saints,"  making  their  generation  notable  for  its  heroism,  and 
abiding  in  its  influence  and  power.  If  they  went  out  from  a  great 
ecclesiastical  organism  it  was  because,  in  consequence  of  its  apos- 
tasies and  its  abuses,  its  intolerance  and  its  short-sightedness,  it 
forced  them  from  its  portals.  They  had  the  limitations  imposed 
upon  men  always  by  their  times ;  they  differed  from  each  other, 
and  those  differences  were  accentuated  by  the  spirit  of  the  day  in 
which  they  lived,  but  when  all  that  can  be  said  is  said — and 
much  that  is  adverse  and  unwarranted  has  been  said — those  men 
are  among  the  best  accredited  among  the  leaders  of  mankind,  and, 
in  the  judgment  of  the  best  and  wisest  of  men,  are  accorded  a 
place  among  the  primates  of  the  great  and  good  of  the  earth. 
They  were  necessary  in  their  protests  and  affirmations,  if  the 
fruitful  work  of  Christianity  in  the  upbuilding  of  its  supreme 
future  was  to  be  conserved.  Their  spirit  was  that  of  John 
Tauler,  who,  in  one  of  his  Advent  sermons,  quotes  a  text  which, 
it  is  said,  nobody  since  has  even  been  able  to  find,  but  which,  to 
the  great  mystic,  was  manifestly  precious :  "God  leadeth  the  right- 
eous by  a  narrow  path,  into  a  broad  highway,  until  they  come  to 
a  wide  open  place." 

The  recognized  chieftain  among  them  spoke  words  that  were 


SOME  OF  THE  ATTAINED  RESULTS  367 

at  once  tender  and  powerful,  and  which  wrought  great  changes 
in  the  Christendom  of  his  day  and  since,  and  which,  because  he 
did  not  speak  them  with  the  same  courage  and  consistency,  made 
his  distinguished  contemporary,  the  gifted  Erasmus,  to  lag  behind 
and  become  a  negligible  factor  in  the  conflict  he  had  done  so  much 
to  promote  in  its  opening  stages.  And  it  is  inspiring  to  re- 
member, even  at  this  day  and  among  the  worked-out  results,  that  j/ 
the  principles  for  which  these  men  contended  in  the  day  of  battle 
have  been  the  principles  which  have  inspired  the  most  advanced 
peoples  of  the  earth  in  the  times  of  stress  that  tried  men's  souls. 
They  were  the  impelling  influence  with  the  brave  men  who  fol- 
lowed Gustavus  Adolphus,  the  devout  king  of  the  Swedes,  the 
"Lion  of  the  North,"  and  the  dispirited  Protestants  of  Germany 
on  that  fatal  6th  of  November,  1632,  when  the  brave  leader  fell 
wounded  unto  death  on  the  critical  field  of  Lutzen.  Those  prin- 
ciples, too,  put  inspiration  into  the  hearts  and  arms  of  the  gallant 
and  long-suffering  peoples  in  the  low  countries  in  their,  at  last, 
successful  conflict  with  the  cruel  and  rapacious  Duke  of  Alva,  the 
military  representative  of  brutal  Spain.  The  same  principles,  in 
turn,  also  fired  the  Huguenots  of  France  when  hunted  to  their 
fastnesses  in  the  Cevennes,  or  when  chased  to  death  by  the  fierce 
imperial  dragonnades,  and  also  impelled  those  persecuted  saints 
who  dwelt  in  the  valleys  of  the  Vaudois  and  the  Austrian  Tyrol. 
They  were  also  found  in  the  migration  of  Pilgrims  and  Puritans, 
who  came  to  these  shores  with  the  robust  conviction  that  kingdom 
after  kingdom  might  perish,  that  powerful  dynasties  might  pass 
and  the  most  venerable  institutions  of  the  earth  might  be  sub- 
verted, but  that  the  Word  of  the  Lord  should  endure  forever,  and 
fhat  the  foundations  of  righteousness  were  among  the  things  that 
could  not  be  shaken. 

Those  principles  have  been  so  vital  that  they  justify  words 
used  by  a  famous  English  preacher  in  a  sermon  preached  in  1844, 
in  St.  Paul's,  London,  that  the  Lutheran  Reformation  was  "the 
third  great  birth  of  time."  When  Mendelssohn,  a  century  ago, 
wrote  his  wonderful  symphony  of  the  Reformation  he  made  the 
famous  "Ein  Feste  Burg"  his  theme  and  its  well-known  tune  the 
motif  of  his  entire  production.  The  instruments  crash  and  shriek 
and  moan  around  the  central  theme,  which,  like  a  scarlet  thread, 
runs  through  the  web  and  woof  of  the  composition.  As  the  end 
approaches  it  grows  louder  and  more  obvious,  and  when  it  is 


368    LUTHERAN  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  XVI  CENTURY 

finally  reached  all  the  hundreds  of  instruments  together  break 
forth  in  the  triumphant  rendering  of  the  great  Reformer's  won- 
derful and  famous  choral,  "the  Marseillaise  of  the  Reformation." 
It  is  even  so  with  that  great  movement.  It  runs  like  a  scarlet 
thread  through  all  the  history  of  these  modern  times,  great  in 
their  manifold  achievements.  And  as  the  ages  approach  the  final 
consummation  of  all  things,  it  will  more  and  more  be  seen  that 
God  was  in  and  over  and  with  him,  when,  four  hundred  years 
ago,  he  moved  an  unknown  monk,  to  nail  ninety-five  theses  upon 
the  door  of  the  Castle  Church  in  the  old  town  of  Wittenberg, 
Germany. 


Date  Due 


FM 


**' 


Ja  3  0  '4! 





''"'-c;v. 


DE  1 9  19 


J--E  2  7-53 

1 1  *5* 

MR  2  2 '54 


>■  (1    '"'  Q 


BW1840  .B35 

The  Lutheran  movement  of  the  sixteenth 
Princeton  Theological  Semmary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00016  4402 


